Reflections
by wonderingwanderer
Summary: Sometimes the past isn't something we talk about because we ourselves cannot come to terms with it. Sometimes we look in a mirror and see a stranger. Sometimes we have red in our ledger. Sometimes we forget who we used to be. One time two deadly assassins met, and they unknowingly shattered their reflections. Rated T for language and some suggestive themes. past pres WinterWidow
1. Prologue

It is snowing. Flakes gently cover the barely lit streets of the outskirts of Moscow. Passer-bys flit here and there, but for the most part, the cold winter night is bare and empty.

A laugh bubbles up from a street corner. The voice is high pitched, sluggish and expressive. The woman is pressed against a crumbling brick wall, dressed in dark blue and furs and jewels—she must be very rich, or at least, the man nuzzling her neck must be.

White flakes cover her blonde hair, causing her to look older than she really is. How old, no one might know, but the gentleman she is with certainly is. His hair has passed greying at the temples. His suit is now crumpled; he whispers something in her ear.

The woman throws her head back, exposing her pale, clear neck. She lets out a loud laugh, pressing him even closer to her.

The man chuckles to himself. What a catch he must have found; he hadn't ever seen her before at the bar, but he is now glad he has. After the long day he's had of countless papers, meetings, and… _difficult_ people, a willing woman in his bed was very much deserved. Even if it was only for his money.

She reaches up and takes his wrinkled hand in hers, smoothing it over with her fingers, watching the invisible patterns they created. "K vashey komnate?" _To your room?_

The man smiles, teeth showing yellow and brown stains. "Da." _Yes_.

They stumble together up the stairs of a nearby hotel, the man having hastily shoved a wad of rubles in the manager's hand. In Russia, one never knows when such luck could ever happen again. Warmth is scarce in the land of forever winters.

A single bulb illumines the room. The carpet is stained and green paint is peeling from the walls, mold running up the corner near the window. A dresser crafted far before the woman's time rests on one side of the room, a long mirror hung precariously over it surface.

The man shuts the blinds.

The bed creaks and shakes as they move against it. The man grunts in frustration. Already there are too many layers. He goes to reach for his belt, and then pauses. His hand… is he seeing double? He shakes his head, thinking it must be the cold.

But then he cannot move his hand.

He coughs over her, trying to grasp for his throat, but he cannot. He is frozen, stuck in place. What is happening? he asked himself.

As he looks down at the woman in blue before him, her lipstick skewed and hair mussed, he knows the truth.

But he will not accept it. His eyes look down at her, pleading, begging for help.

There is no life in her eyes. They are bright, but they are passionless.

As the man walks backwards, foam collecting in his mouth and spewing from his lips, she does not move. Only after he stops sputtering and twitching does she blink, tilting her head, as if inspecting him.

Wordlessly, she lifts his prone body off her legs, swinging them off the bed and to the carpeted floor. She wiggles her toes, stretches her back. She walks to the lone chair opposite the bed and retrieves her furs, wipes off her lipstick with them. She takes off her dress, peeling it from her frozen skin. A shiver runs down her back.

Turning it inside out, she shakes her head in disbelief once again at Alexi's ingenious. The dress is completely different on the inside. She slips it back on, green this time. She takes off her wig, exposing her fiery red. She stuffs it in her purse; she would ditch it in a dumpster 5 miles away.

With care, she buries the man's body in blankets, shifting him to his side.

Already she knows the headline for tomorrow's paper. 'Minister of Finance, 69, dies in sleep in hotel room' it will read.

It will speak of a mysterious blonde that he lead up to the top floor of the most lewd hotel in Moscow. The cause of death? Well. His ticker just couldn't take the strain.

Before she leaves, she catches her reflection in the mirror. A woman of average height with wavy red hair, inquisitively arched brows, and curves for miles. She smiles at her reflection, touching the earpiece hidden behind her hair. "Eto zakoncheno," she says. _It is finished._

She hears static for a moment, and then, in a crystal clear voice: "Khorosho. Vozvrashchaysya domoy, Chernaya Vdova." _Good. Come home, Black Widow._

"Da, ser," she replies. _Yes, Sir. Always, Sir. For the Motherland, Sir…_

She locks the door to the hotel room before she leaves, those impassive eyes staring back at her in the mirror haunting her mind. It is deep in the night now. No one is in the streets, and if they are, then they are prey. The snow continues to fall, continues to carpet her world in ice.

* * *

She runs from one block to the next, keeping in line with the shadows, finally stopping in front of a large, crumbling building alongside a liquor store, its neon sign blinking and flickering red against the white snow. No one lives here. There is no heat, no light, no electricity.

This is her perfect hiding place.

She goes to the third floor; there is no need to lock the door, for there is none. In the dark she finds her combat outfit. She quickly slips it on.

In one room, she takes out a suitcase underneath fallen floorboards. Her weapons. Mechanically, she cleans them, feeling with her fingers where the objects are in front of her.

She cocks her pistol.

Was that a noise?

…no. That was nerves.

She returns to her rigorous cleaning. Satisfied, she takes the suitcase with her to the next room, and the next—her passports, her papers, her case files. All spread out over the third floor of an abandoned building.

When she is finished, she takes everything with her to the ground level. Her booted feet make no sound over the decrepit floor. Stepping outside, she meets her contact.

"Ty opozdal," he says, taking a drag of a cigarette.

He is in the dark, but leans forward into the the light of a streetlamp. Her eyes take him in, the strong-bodied muscle of a man, metallic arm against a pristinely waxed and cleaned motorbike. His mask hides half his face, but she can tell by his eyes he is smiling. _You are late_ , he had said.

She doesn't smile back. "YA rano," she replies. _I am early_.

He chuckles, nodding his head.

She decides that she likes his smile.

* * *

Her arms are around his waist and against her better judgement, she presses into his leather uniform a little more than usual.

He notices and slightly tightens his grip on the handlebars, urging the bike on even faster.

She tells herself it is because of the snow. Who knows what might happen should they encounter ice and slide off the road?

They would survive, she knows. He would grab her with his arm, or she would jump in the air and remain unscathed.

But it is a very dark night. And it is very cold.

So she leans in even more.

* * *

Hands gripping the handles, he is surprised. Not completely surprised. He is a master of observation. And yet he is still surprised nonetheless.

Despite the freezing weather, she is warm against his back. He finds he doesn't mind the warmth. It puzzles him somewhat, since he is so used to the cold.

His right arm yearns to reach out and touch her. His left arm stays on the handle. It feels nothing.

He reminds himself for the seventh time that month that he must be careful around this one. She is the best of her class. She is impassive in her work. In fact, he rather admires her work. But she is warm. She makes him think things that he shouldn't.

He thinks back to when they first met. Five years ago.


	2. Chapter 1

He tightens his grip on the motorcycle handlebars as they race into the dark. He wonders if she has fallen asleep; she hasn't moved in an hour. Then she shifts and he realizes she is listening. Listening to what? There is nothing to hear besides the beat of his own heart and the purr of the machinery beneath him.

He will never forget the moment he first saw her. No matter how many times he is brainwashed (and he knows he is, the pain in his mind is so intense he cannot think anything else could be the case), he remembers the first time they fought.

As the motorcycle speeds off, his world dissolves into snow.

It had been snowing too, the day he had met Natalia. It was cramped and awkward in the back of his escort's car, but he managed to get a glimpse out the window by turning his head to the right a bit more.

Already, snow had covered the main lawn, causing the building ahead of him to glow in contrast. He hadn't exactly been sure what to expect, but nothing as magnificent as this.

"Eto velikolepno, razve net?" said Mikhail. _Gorgeous, isn't it?_

He didn't nod. Mikhail didn't seem to mind and went back to staring out the window beside him. Having an escort was nothing new to him, but every time he was given an objective, they did tend to be more of an annoyance than anything else.

The car pulled to a stop in front of long, marble steps flanked by iron bannisters on both sides. A man was standing at the bottom to meet them with a gun slung over his shoulder, stubble on this jaw at least a week old, a cigarette burning between his teeth.

He was not the only guard, The Winter Soldier mused. There were others hiding among the trees, should something go awry.

The guard looked him up and down, Mikhail as well. With a nod of his head, he led them to the doors, throwing them open without care.

The interior of the manor was just as lovely. Long, intricate arches decorated every hall, and tall, elegant windows stood watch over all the manor's inhabitants. It had been said that royalty, some cousin of the Russian tsar, had lived here. But those were simply stories.

Looking around, he found he didn't doubt the tale. The furniture he could see was ornate, belonging to an era far before his—whenever that had been. Paintings and sculptures that belonged in museums were hung or placed throughout, a sure testament to the power and sophistication of the school.

Golden chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and as he looked up, he could see that the ceiling was actually a giant fresco of angels, historic figures, saints.

His boots clicked and clunked on the tile floor. A few men and women in white lab coats or cleaning uniforms walked by, mouths held taught but eyes following his every move. They didn't matter. Their stares were insignificant.

The guard turned and stopped, presumably resuming his post outside two long, sculpted wooden doors.

Stepping in front of him and awkwardly bowing a bit, the escort opened the doors, leading him to a large room that must have been a ballroom, once long ago. Now the entire center of the floor had been carpeted with red.

The room itself was three stories high. Statues of angels looked down at him from the upper walls, three the end of the hall, and five on either side, each adorned with intricate molding and holding garlands of golden roses.

He must've been early, since a ballet class appeared to be in session. Girls of all ages danced with fluid-like motion in unison, arms stretching this way and that in their leotards, pointed feet moving almost faster than his eyes could keep up with. Then, the pace, the personality of the dance changed, and he could not tell where the art began and the deadly combat ended.

There was no music.

They had no need for music.

He had heard of this place before from gossiping soldiers at the gulag a few years back. The name stuck out in his memory like a sore thumb. _The Red Room_.

He watched their faces as they danced, spellbound. There was something so transfixing in their movements, something he couldn't describe. But he yearned to know more of this lethal grace.

They were so utterly concentrated on their craft, either they hadn't heard him enter, or they ignored him altogether. That was, except for one.

One girl, slightly shorter than the rest but by no means less talented, caught his eye from across the room. She held his gaze as she bent her body in ways he admitted he never thought were possible. Then, she smiled.

"Krasivaya…" Mikhail commented. _Beautiful…_

He did not reply.

"Devochki!" a tall with woman spectacles perched on her nose yelled. _Girls!_

Immediately, the dancers froze in their positions, falling into what must have been a familiar formation. They stood in a horizontal line at the end of the room, from youngest to oldest.

"Eto Madam Gorbachev," the escort whispered in his ear. _This is Madame Gorbachev_.

"Elizaveta!"

A blonde girl from the end of the line stepped forward.

"Pokazhi yemu." _Show him_.

Elizaveta turned towards the newcomer. He nodded to her and she nodded back.

They stood in the center of the room. He could feel the eyes of the other dancers travel to the blonde girl. She didn't look back at them, but he could tell she was nervous. A small bead of sweat ran from her drawn back hair to the base of her neck.

She ran at him, cross kicking him in the gut, striking blow after blow to his armor. But he did not fall down like she had expected. Changing tactics, she tried to flip him over her shoulder. Agility may have been on her side, surprise as well—but once he caught her arm with his, she gasped. He wrenched her arm backwards, causing her to cry out and twist her body, flipping out of his grasp.

Her slender form thumped loudly on the tile floor, but she bounced back up and, parrying his jab, used the force to turn and knee him in the chest. He grunted and swung his metal arm back at her, and flung her away as if she were a fly. _Black Widow, indeed…_

After picking herself up again, she started after him, but then a shrill sound pierced the air.

It was the spectacled woman. Placing her whistle back underneath the collar of her dress, the woman shook her head at Elizaveta.

"I thought you were better than this," she said to the dancer in perfect English. "Get back in line."

"I…I try most-"

Madame Gorbachev smiled, her voice cold and sweet, like one might imagine a witch might sound, tempting children with candy in the forest. "Your reflexes are lacking, Elizaveta. Your English is horrific. Perfect them both, then you can talk. Get back in line. Now."

Elizaveta ran back to the line, face stoic and expressionless.

"As a matter of fact, I believe you all must practice your English. Girls," she said, gesturing to the newcomer, "This is your new teacher. Learn from him. Learn your weaknesses. He is the single greatest weapon of our Union. May I present, The Winter Soldier…"

The girl who had smiled earlier raised an eyebrow, but the others merely looked on. He thought that for a second, they were bored, but maybe it wasn't boredom that was spread on their faces like jam on toast.

He could recognize fear when he saw it.

"I'll spar with him," said the girl who had smiled. Her English was almost perfect, her voice honeyed and clear. Like there was an innocence about her that was not so innocent.

"Natalia," Madame Gorbachev said, a chuckle on the edge of her lips, "I had hoped you would volunteer." She turned to him. "Romanova is one of our best."

"You flatter me, Madame," said Romanova. But even as she walked towards him, the other girls parted, as if they could not touch her if they tried.

Their faces were blank but their eyes were jealous.

Romanova stood across from him in the center of the room. Madame Gorbachev blew her whistle.

The Winter Soldier didn't know what was happening until he was on his knees, clutching his side. Her kicks were exact, pointed, sharp, and precise.

Behind his mask, he licked his lips. Finally. Competition.

She made to strike the back of his neck with her elbow, but he twisted from her reach, punching her throat in the process. She choked in pain, but quickly regained her strength and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him down and jamming her knee into his head.

So. The Widow liked to fight dirty?

The Winter Soldier met her punch for punch, jab for jab, parrying her blows with stronger ones of his own.

Natalia grit her teeth while she fought him, as if she were studying his every move. To his surprise, she suddenly jumped in between his legs. She quickly rolled under him and hooked a foot around his leg, effectively bringing him down with her.

His metal arm clunked to the floor, stuck under her weight has she held him down, hand against the back of his neck.

"Try again, Commrade?" she asked. From his place on the floor, he imagined her smirking.

But she had underestimated his arm's strength. He twisted it from her grasp, flipping them. Her back landed harshly on the carpet and she gave a grunt of annoyance.

Over again they tumbled, each trying to gain the upper hand. It was only when the Soldier's metal hand tightened around her neck for far too long that Madame Gorbachev blew her whistle.

"All right, Soldier," she said.

Natalia squirmed below him, one arm pinned underneath her, trying to use the opposite one to claw and pry him off her. He stared at her face as his hands pressed on both sides of her neck, and his metal knuckles pushed down on her windpipe.

Now that he could see her up close, he could tell why she would be one of the best in her class. Her face was beautiful—her skin was alabaster and clear, like the snow-covered ice lakes he had passed on his way to the school. Her neck, long and slender, like that of a swan, with her long red hair its wings. Her lips, though chapped and now a bit bloody, were full and rosy. If he hadn't been fighting her, and had seen her on the streets of St. Petersburg, he would think himself in a fairytale.

He briefly wondered how many men might have thought the same thing before becoming caught up in her web.

Yes, there was something about her that was very regal, somehow poised, yet lethal. Something that confirmed his theory of ballet as a deadly art.

But there was something…something else. What was it about her that had him so bemused?

"Soldier!"

He blinked. The redhead had stopped choking, had started to pale. He jumped up and rose from the floor, watching as her hands felt for her throat and she gasped for air.

Madame Gorbachev looked on with calculating eyes. "Had it not been for the whistle, you would have been gone, Natalia." She turned to the other girls. "This is why he is here. To teach you about yourselves. You may think you are good, but be certain; you will not think you are good when you are dead."

"Da, Madam," the dancers said in unison.

"Now, go. _Pomyt'sya_." _Wash up._

"Da, Madam."

As the dancers filed out of the room, Natalia glanced back at the Soldier and smirked at his indifference.

"Try not to kill any of the upperclassmen," said Madame Gorbachev in his ear, "Only if you must. KGB trusts your judgement."

The Soldier nodded. "Vannoy?"

"Down the hall, two doors to your right."

* * *

The bathroom door gave an audible click as it locked behind him.

Running his head under the tap, he clenched the sink in both hands. He breathed in—breathed out. Breathed in. And again.

Had he meant to kill the woman? No, that wasn't it. She had slighted him; she had gotten the upper hand and he was showing her how pride could harm a fighter.

Right?

It had been a while since they'd fixed him again. Gotten rid of whatever this was, this feeling. It was only when he felt nothing that finally, he could be at peace.

Closing his eyes and running his flesh fingers through his hair, he opened his mind to the grander picture. Objective? He would stay at the school for three months. In that time, he was to train all upperclassmen.

 _But what had it been that had distracted him?_

His second objective: He was to break a Black Widow and build her up again. Find the spy's weakness. Exploit it. And expose it. Only then could she be of use to Hydra.

"Soldat?" Mikhail called from behind the door.

He stopped the tap looked into the mirror, memorizing the contours of his skin and the angle of his jaw. He stared at his reflection, at the man in his twenties with a scraggly beard and too-long hair that reminded him of seaweed and dull, blue eyes with deep, dark circles beneath them. He quickly pulled his mask back on. The man in the mirror was a stranger, and he couldn't care less.

"Odin moment!"

The answer tore through him like lightning. That was it.

For a woman with such fire, her eyes—her eyes were certainly dead.

* * *

 _S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters. Late Spring, 2005. Undisclosed D.C. Area._

 _Natalia Romanova. KGB Assassin. '5"4, 120lbs. Hair color: Red. Eye color: Blue. Trademark: The Widow Bite. Kills? Unknown. Birth date? Debated. Anywhere from 1920's to 1984. Rumored relation to the deceased Romanov royal family. Unconfirmed._

"1920's?" Clint asked, looking up from the file.

Director Nick Fury looked up from his folded hands. The agent's face remained impassive, but it was his eyes that betrayed him. The confusion near radiated off of him.

"Is that a problem, Hawkeye?"

Clint blinked. "No. But I would like to know more than a few lines about who I'm supposed to be taking out."

Fury closed his eyes, fingers tapping on his desk. The ceiling fan above them did little to cool the already hot and sticky day. The piping over the ceiling boards clanked loudly. He made a mental note to email custodial services.

Director Fury sighed. "This woman's confirmed hit list outmatches yours by more than a margin. She might even have kills as early as 1950." He looked Clint straight in the eyes, "Bottom Line: I want you to get her before she gets you."

Clint slowly nodded.

Fury got up from his desk. "There's a gala in Prague this weekend. Be there. You're my eyes, Hawkeye. Find her. And make sure The Black Widow never spins another web again."

"And how do we know she's gonna be there?"

"She'll be there," he replied. "Spiders always show themselves after the rain…"

Clint Barton tilted his head in confusion, but managed to mutter a "Yes, sir," in Fury's general direction before walking to the door.

"Oh, and Barton-"

"Director?"

"You might want to bring a shoe."


	3. Chapter 2

He walked with Mikhail to the end of the main hall, past the kitchens, and to what might used to have been a servants' entry.

"Syuda," Mikhail said, opening up a wooden door and stepping inside. _This way._

The Winter Soldier followed.

Inside was a tall, poorly lit spiral staircase. As they ascended the iron steps, Mikhail explained that this was used by servants during February Revolution, to pass along secrets about their master and the happenings in St. Petersburg itself as part of an attempt to eventually overthrow the Tsar. Mikhail tossed back his unkempt head in a laugh. What chaos! The Tsar might have been assassinated, but it had nothing to do with those peasants. Imperialist Russia had always been destined to die.

His companion merely nodded. Politics! he thought. As if they could mean much to him. Communists, Imperialists, Socialists, the whole lot of them, they were all the same. Men with minds who came up with solutions to problems that never really sorted themselves out. But the objective—the objective was all that mattered. His mission. His mission was everything.

Mikhail laughed again as they reached the end of the stairs. As if The Winter Soldier could comprehend such things, he said. Not much going on upstairs, was there now?

The Winter Soldier remained silent.

Mikhail shrugged, turning his face back ahead of them. He opened another wooden door, swinging it wide. The hall ahead was cramped and smelled of mold, but at least the flickering lights were brighter than those of the staircase. He took out a small brass key from his pocket, and walked to the second to last door from the back. He inserted it, twisted, and motioned for The Winter Soldier to enter.

A lone wooden bed frame with a stained mattress was the centerpiece of the room, a light blue cotton blanket and small pillow its only decoration. Yellowish paint was peeling on the walls, offset only by table and chair where The Soldier's weaponry and combat gear was already spread out.

"Eto vash," said Mikhail with a low grumble. _This is yours_.

It wasn't much, but something was always better than the nothing he had grown so accustomed to. He nodded in thanks and sat down on the bed, testing its spring with his weight.

Mikhail made to leave, but paused at the door.

"Madame Gorbachev," he said in English, "She like to speak with you. In English, like this. Soon."

The Winter Soldier nodded, taking off his glove and running his flesh fingers over the cotton blanket. Mikhail stared on at him.

"Nachalo zavtra," he said, voice strained somehow. _Start tomorrow._

The Winter Soldier pulled back his hand as if it had touched fire. "Da," he replied.

Mikhail closed the door behind him.

The room was quiet now. The only window had been boarded up, so that the only light he could see by was an old oil lamp, resting on the table.

He chuckled to himself. Politics. The reason why the servants' quarters were horrifically different from the rest of the Mansion.

By his estimate, it was almost 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Familiarizing himself with his environment, that was his first step. He should take a look around. Discovering more about this 'Natalia'… That was a close second. She seemed ambitious; perhaps she would be a good choice for Hydra.

Another thing about politics. Never assume you're the only fish in the sea. Something underneath may still be lurking… And then, one day, it may strike out from the ocean floor. And the Empire will fall… KGB would never see them coming…

The Winter Soldier paused. He glanced down.

His fingers were still stroking the cotton blanket, as if it were a dog or some lover's arm.

What was it about that color blue?

* * *

Half an hour later, he decided it was best to shake whatever cobwebs still lurked in his mind and scope out the manor. The rest of the rooms of The Red Room Academy, as he heard it was called, were just as large and as beautiful as The Red Room itself, with ornately decorated ceilings and molding, and statues staring off with formless and sightless eyes. Golds, reds, and blues glittered around him as he walked down the main hall.

Somewhere, someone was playing a violin.

Girls in uniforms passed him, their stares incessantly curious. Who is this strange new man? they seemed to be asking.

"Ah, Soldier!"

Madame Gorbachev caught his eye from down the hall, halting her conversation with a small blonde girl in pigtails. She gently prodded the girl away, heels clicking as she met him at his side. "I was hoping you would come down soon. There are many things we should discuss." She nodded her head to the side before he could reply. "My office, please."

* * *

"I want to thank you so much for coming here," Madame Gorbachev said from her desk. She fiddled with a pencil. "The girls will certainly learn much from your instruction."

The Winter Soldier was still looking around the room. It puzzled him.

"Especially Romanova. My God, that girl's got her head in the clouds. Don't get me wrong, she's one of the best, but certainly…Something wrong, Soldier?"

He frowned. All of it. All of it seemed wrong.

"I can sense your confusion," she said, smiling as she lent back in her chair. "I like to keep my office separate from the Imperialist elite. You know, when they made this mansion, they styled it after the Florentine Renaissance, can you believe it?"

It was so odd. Stepping into her office was like stepping into a whole other world. It was almost militaristic in its setup, with army green walls and thick wooden desks and antiques that certainly didn't belong in the late 20th century. The entire aesthetic was that which seemed distinctly _American_.

"It was thirty years ago that I came back from the States. A few years after the Second World War, you know. You see, I was a Black Widow, too."

Ah. That made sense. He nodded, still a bit puzzled by the almost familiar setting.

Madame Gorbachev absently inspected her nails. "Retired, now. But like Romanova, I once was one of the best. You know that American agency, S.H.I.E.L.D.? The Director. I fought her a few times, and lived another day. Americans are so stupid, really. Some of them like to think that compassion makes them better people, but really, it just makes them weak in the end." She sniffed. "Still, I did miss those days, so I keep my office and a few other rooms as uniform and sanitary as I can get."

The Winter Soldier nodded again. Weakness comes in many forms.

There was a nock at the door. A tall man with a thick white mustache, large glasses, a tweed suit, and a leather briefcase entered the room.

This must be the Professor.

"Ah, Professor!"

"Madame Gorbachev!" The man broke into a yellowed smile.

"Soldier, this is Professor Grigor Ivanovich Pchelintsov, the mastermind behind the Black Widow Program. He assisted in resurrecting it when I returned to U.S.S.R.."

"Pleasure," Professor Pchelintsov mumbled. "Now, uh, Madame Gorbachev, about that…issue?"

"The issue? Oh! Yes, yes, the issue. In a moment, dear." She turned to The Winter Soldier. "Anyway, here is the outline of your stay: three months, train the girls, and we'll see where this goes. They have missions or days off on Saturdays, so feel free to do whatever it is you'd like. Get close to them. Help them find their weaknesses. And, who knows—perhaps your handlers will consider joint missions with The Black Widow Program. As always, KGB thanks you for your cooperation, Comrade."

He nodded. "Natalia," he said.

The Professor seemed a bit taken aback at his presence, jumping a bit in his chair at the voice.

The Soldier continued. "I will start with her."

* * *

"Romanova is our prize pupil," explained Madame Gorbachev, "It wouldn't be right to put her with the other beginners."

He nodded. Obviously.

Madame Gorbachev gestured down the hall with a long, manicured hand. "This way, Soldier."

Her heels clicked on the tiled floor as she walked with him to the end of the hall and up a small set of stairs, much more grand than the one on the servants' side of the mansion. Room after room, he could hear sounds of commotion: grunting, hitting, and the occasional cry, a scream for mercy. The sounds decorated the halls like banners. This was the academy for killers.

In the dim light, he could make out figures of the underclassmen girls, clearly fascinated by the newcomer, the man who had beat Prem'yer, _The Prime_. He did not return their gaze.

Ascending the stairs, Madame Gorbachev lead him to a wing that was smaller than the rest, but much more lush and garnished, with red and gold tapestries and strange carvings on the walls.

"There," said Madame Gorbachev, pointing to a door at the end of the hall, "That is where she stays when she is not training the younger girls or out on assignment." She shrugged. "See what you can do."

* * *

"So you're the best damn weapon in the U.S.S.R.?"

He shrugged. "Vot chto oni govoryat." _That is what they say._

"Speak English, I need the practice."

With two hands, Natalia thrust the curtains open. Golden sunlight from the evening flooded the room, drenching everything it touched with a warm glow. She turned around to him. His left eye twitched a bit when light hit just half his mask.

"I never used to be good. Do you believe that?"

"You did very well," he said, "But not as well as you think you did."

"Oh?" She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Always underestimate yourself when sparring. Your shove might be a push and your push might be a tickle"

Natalia laughed.

He straightened up in the chair, pushing his back closer to the plush cushion. Her room matched the rest of the mansion in style, but lacked character. It was as if someone had merely placed the furniture there, with no intention of staying long. Like it was a show, a set. "Did I say something amusing?"

"No, no. It's just very funny to hear the word "tickle" come from a man who wears googles and a mask while sparring."

The Winter Soldier shrugged. "If you want to be a good Black Widow-"

"The best," she interrupted. "I will be the best."

"Why?"

She froze, standing stalk-still in front of the window, gazing at the snow beyond. "Why? Why would anyone want to be the best? Why would anyone want to be anything less?"

"For what?" He asked. He was swimming in dangerous waters, and he knew it. "The glory, the honor, the power at bending men to your will?"

"For the motherland," she replied, as if it were obvious. "But I don't think you could understand. Word is, you're not even Russian. So," she sat down in a wicker chair opposite him, "What are you, soldier? Why do you kill?"

He opened his mouth—but nothing came out. Frowning, he opened his mouth again to tell her off. Still, he was at a loss. He could think of nothing.

But, why? Why was that? He wracked his brain, trying to search for something, some purpose. Why did he fight? Why did he kill for Hydra?

"You men are the same," she continued, "fighting for a cause just for the sake of fighting."

No, that couldn't be it. He knew that wasn't it. He wouldn't go into a fight without at least some sense of reasoning. So why could he not think of why he was training at The Red Room, why he wasn't Russian but was fighting for the Soviets?

Finally, after some confusion, he took off his googles, then his mask.

If Natalia was surprised at what she saw, she didn't show it.

"You're right, in a way. I don't know what it's like to fight for The Motherland. I fight because it's what I do. Not for the sake of fighting, but because," he thought for the right words, "because I follow orders. Have you ever had to follow orders? Follow them to the very last detail? Have them whispered in your ear or shouted at you in pain? Have your mind be blank so that all at once it can be filled with information, tactics, objectives... No. You've never been a weapon. You're just a student, a prize fighter in the ring who's never been taken down, that is, before today. You're no Black Widow."

Natalia stood up suddenly, staring at him with fire. "You're right. I'm not a weapon. Not yet. But you," she said, pointing a finger at his face, "Under your mask, you are still a man."

It took three minutes for him to realize that she had left the room.

* * *

"I know," said Mikhail in Russian, holding his temple in one hand, payphone in the other, "I know, I know this is inopportune. But he's thinking again. God, I thought he was still fried since the last time we hooked him up, but no. Now he's chatty. How long has it been, Vlad, how long...yes...yes, I understand." He looked around at the chilly streets of St. Petersburg, praying no one had followed him. "You sure you want to... Well I don't know, Vlad, why don't you ask them yourself? I'm sure they probably have a space for it, God, this place is like a _grebanyy_ castle… You gonna bring the equipment? Good, good. Yes…yes, I've still got it. Yes, I'll use it." He looked down at his pocket, and with one hand on the telephone, he reached down with the other and pulled out an average-sized, red notebook with a black star on the front. He ran his thumb over the cover. "Should the worst happen, I will. Hail Hydra!"

* * *

 _Somewhere over Prague, Late Spring, 2005._

"He called me a _shoe_?"

"I guess so. Don't know what else he could've meant."

"Odd. I can't tell if I'm offended or not."

Clint Barton looked out the plane window, watching the yellow and orange sky as the plane's neck suddenly dipped beneath a flurry of white. There was something about flying that made him almost giddy on the inside. Maybe it was because man never evolved to have wings, never was supposed to be thousands of feet up in the air. And yet, in the end, they achieved the impossible.

Maybe it was because he liked the view from above. To see cars below him like ants, to see fields of all spectrums of colors melt together in all sorts of patters. Up here, the problems down there didn't seem so important. Perspective. Yeah, perspective. That was why he liked flying.

Most likely, it was because he didn't have to do any of the driving.

"…PRG this is Sierra Tango Eight Two, requesting permission to land, over."

Oh yeah. The new recruit.

The radio buzzed with static. "Roger that, Sierra Tango. Runway cleared for landing, over."

Clint looked out the window once more, a city slowly rising up to meet him. Or perhaps, he was coming down to meet it. To meet her.

"Are you ready for some fun, Agent Hill?"

Maria didn't look up at him, hands gripping the center stick. "I didn't think knocking off a political assassin fell under the category of fun."

"Aw, c'mon," said Hawkeye, wriggling in his seatbelt, "Sure it does. Watch and learn, Maria. Watch and learn."

"It's Agent Hill," she said. "And get your feet off the dash."


	4. Chapter 3

Blue.

So many shades of blue.

Flowers. Flowers were blue. He liked the flowers that once grew in his neighbor's window box. He liked his neighbor. She was old and wrinkly, but she made the best desserts he'd ever eaten. She'd smile and smack his head around, more so when he grew older and she grew whiter. The flower box was still there when she died. He'd cried, then. He supposed he felt blue when he heard the news. Can blue be a feeling? But feelings are irrelevant. Either way, he had been there when she had planted them, and boy, were they pretty. They were blue, too. A dark blue though, like the sea. Not like the light blue of the sky. Blue birds. Birds flew in the sky. He once flew in the sky too, but in a plane, not in a bird. That's ridiculous. When? Oh, a long time ago that's not very interesting, to him or to anyone else. Back then, he wore blue, too. It was a safe blue, that jacket. Just dark enough to be hidden, but just light enough and just colorful enough to not be too dark. No one should ever be too dark. Because at night, when the world is dark, the color blue gets swallowed up, and it takes an entire morning for it to return again…

Drip. Drip. Drip. Plop.

Water?

He was laying down in a surgical chair, staring up at a blinding light above him. He blinked. He looked over to his left; IV in his arm. He hissed as he pulled the needle from his skin. How did he get here?

He sat up, rubbing his head. Step 1: Observe.

The room was abandoned. But there were operating lights on. The entire room looked old. Ancient, almost. There were no windows, but a door just across from where he was situated. A draft from somewhere. There were technical instruments—forceps, scissors, clenches—scattered on the floor. The floor was dirty. Bits of dirt and fluids and rubble were left smudged on its tiled surface. Blood. Definitely.

Step 2: Find your weapon.

Reaching over to the operating table, he picked up a scalpel, and tested its sharpness on his finger. He drew blood on the first prick.

Step 3: Know your enemy.

It would be foolhardy to call out. Anyone could come running in and attack him.

He shook his head. Was it just him, or was it getting stuffy in here?

He made to head to the door, but the room began spinning too fast for him to make out a clear path. One foot…after the other…yes, that's it. He reached out for the handle—

No. It couldn't be. But… His arm. His left arm was flesh.

He jumped, fully alert. Someone was whispering outside the door. Silently, he pressed his ear to the rusty metal door. It was indistinguishable at first, but then he caught it, as if it had been carried by a faraway, distant wind, and had landed safely in his outstretched hands.

"Bucky!" said the Wind.

"Who the hell is that?" he whispered back.

The Wind kept repeating that name over and over again. He grunted, clawing at his head, his heart pounding in his chest. He slid down to the floor. He could barely breathe, and the room was still spinning, and the Wind wouldn't _grebanyy_ shut up.

It went through him like a shockwave. He gasped for air, staring up at the ceiling that was now a blanket of stars, only to look down and see the devastation of a battlefield. What was left of houses were smoking, small fires that had once been roaring lions now just whispers and groans, still wreaking havoc on the small village. There were bloodied bodies strewn about, limbs twisted in some unholy manner even God could not look down upon. He knew this place.

"You ready, Buck?"

The voice came from behind him. He didn't want to turn around, didn't want to confront the Wind, didn't want to know his enemy, didn't want his enemy to see him like this, _here_. His fingers tightened their grip on the scalpel.

He turned around and stared into yet another deep shade of blue.

And so he let his shoulders drop and hung his face to the ground and plunged the scalpel into his enemy. The Wind sputtered, still mumbling that blasted name.

It was silent. The stars were still out. The fires still burned. The Wind made no sound.

The Winter Soldier smiled to himself.

 _What was the color blue?_

He snapped awake with a start. Like all dreams, it had begun to fade the moment it left him, but as he arose and shook his head, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was different.

When he left his room that morning, he had folded everything neatly and precisely, cleaning up everything with mechanical and analytical precision. The blue blanket, however, he had left crumpled in a heap where it had fallen between the table and his bed.

When he returned that evening, he realized he simply must have forgotten it.

* * *

It was his second week at The Red Room. At first, he would give out pointers and suggestions, watching the girls move and correcting their stances. He would observe. And then he would teach.

These were the underclassmen, but already they could fight better than the average man with any kind of military training. They ran petty errands, not local hits like the upperclassmen did. He would see them every day in The Red Room, and occasionally in the hall, but as far as their free time and other studies went, he was kept in the dark. Compartmentalization, he supposed. Never let any one individual know everything, lest, of course, he be the one in charge. And even then, experience told him that even the leader had secrets kept from him.

The Professor was hiding something, for sure. He couldn't tell what it was, but whatever is was gave The Professor a constant sour expression, immediately followed by a winning smile and cheer whenever he made eye contact with The Winter Soldier. The Professor seemed at home at The Red Room, much like he had been there before. It wasn't impossible, since he had been one of the original creators of the program. Still, The Winter Soldier could still see fear behind the man's smile as The Professor passed him in the hall and drifted from one room to the next.

Perhaps it all had to do with the issue Madame Gorbachev had briefly been flustered by when they first met in her office. He shivered a bit. He hated her office. He had found that while he didn't normally form strong opinions, her office was certainly an outlier. There was something wrong about the whole situation, like there was something no one would bother to tell him. Even Mikhail seemed on edge.

No matter. He would find out sooner or later. Sooner being much more probable.

There was something about The Red Room that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he knew he was going to find out.

"No, no," he said to a smaller girl. He recognized her as the one with pigtails that had been speaking with Madame Gorbachev weeks ago. "Lift your legs more; you have more of power this way, to thrust them into your opponent and not injure yourself in the process."

She nodded and tried again. "Da, Soldat." _Yes, Soldier._

He folded his arms and went back to observing the demonstration. The girls yelled as the fought, their instincts sharp and their hits even sharper. He admitted it; he was impressed.

Pigtail girl had managed to throw the other girl, a brunette, to the floor, and began hitting and boxing with her face.

The Winter Soldier watched on.

The blonde girl continued to hit her while the brunette struggled.

The Winter Soldier clicked his stopwatch. "Dostatochnoye kolichestvo." _Enough_.

The girl didn't listen, starting to tighten her fingers around the flailing girl's neck.

"Hey, I said-"

"Continue, Ira."

He looked up at the face of Madame Gorbachev. He was slightly perplexed, but didn't try to stop the girls. She had never joined one of his lessons before; in fact, just where had she been these last few weeks?

"That's it, Ira. Keep going." Madame Gorbachev crossed her arms, smoothing her shirt sleeves.

The blonde girl pressed down even harder on the brunette's windpipe. The girl underneath her choked, thrashed about on the floor, until she stopped thrashing and lay still. When Ira was satisfied, she took the girl's head in her hands and snapped it to the left.

Oh.

"Well done, Ira," said Madame Gorbachev, coming over to her side. "Beautiful presentation," she said, running her fingers through the dead girl's hair, letting the blood from her wounds pool on the floor.

He then knew why the carpet was red.

She rose to address the other girls looking on with wide eyes. "You will choose which method you like the most, but see here how Ira has made absolutely sure her subject is dead. That is imperative in the field."

"Da, Madam!"

"But obviously, keep the creativity confined to the classroom. You're to assess the situation, approach the subject, and terminate them. Do not engage in anything extracurricular. Understand?"

"Da, Madam!"

"Your session is over for today."

The girls began filtering out of the room, none looking back at the brunette on the floor besides Ira. She stood stalk still, staring down at her classmate's prone body. She spat on it. "Slaboumnyy," she whispered as she turned and left the room. _Moron. Idiot. Weak_.

Still, The Winter Soldier looked on.

Madame Gorbachev chuckled. "I see you're catching on to our methods very quickly."

"You would kill your students?"

Madame Gorbachev shrugged, straightening the furniture that had been overturned in the fight. "Only the strongest will survive in the world outside. We must be sure only the strongest come out."

"And if the deceased was actually stronger, if they had been tricked into being on the bottom?"

She shrugged again. "Then they had been outwitted. Strength, as I'm sure you know, Soldier, comes in many forms."

He nodded. So did weakness.

"I must ask," she continued, "How is your assessment of Natalia going?"

Natalia?

And suddenly, everything stopped.

"She is something fierce."

"I agree," said Madame Gorbachev. "What can you tell me about her? What have you observed?"

"She is an excellent fighter. She is quick to assess and quick to execute whatever she wishes. She judges with excellence and does not shed mercy. She is as intelligent and driven as she is beautiful. If these past few weeks have shown anything, it is that she would be an excellent candidate for Black Widow."

Madame Gorbachev clapped her hands together. "I thought you would say this. It is exactly how I think. But I want you to dig deeper, into not just her physical nature, but her psychological. If she is to rise to the ranks of Black Widow, she must be more than just strong. She should be firm like a stone but grounded in her own philosophy as if she were the god of it, a never ending cycle of belief in herself and fueling that belief with her ideals. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"She should be untouchable and unrestricted. The perfect Black Widow. In alignment with Mother Russia and in alignment with herself, so her work will be absolutely perfect and perfectly motivated."

He nodded again.

"Come to my office when you're done with your assessment, Soldier." She raised a finger and ran it across his stubbled chin. "I rather like you without your mask, Soldier. The things you must have seen…" Her eyes lit up like fire. "How wonderful they must have been."

She left the room with the body of the dead girl still staining the carpet. The Winter Soldier wasn't exactly sure what to think. This wasn't his usual op, neither was it his usual mission.

But there was something inside him that kept tugging at his heels, forcing him to move closer to the girl. When he was standing above her, he had no idea how he had gotten there. She stared up at him, unblinking and frozen at the horror of her classmate's hands across her throat. She couldn't have been no more than 10.

He knelt down on one knee, bit the inside of his lip, and took off his glove.

Gingerly, he closed her eyes for her with his flesh hand.

And then he left the room as well.

Blue. Her eyes had been blue.

* * *

It was dark when Mikhail realized he'd been wandering around for hours. The Soviet country was not a very friendly place after dark, but Mikhail knew this. He stuffed both hands in his coat pockets, bristling at the wet chill. His boots crunched the snow of the alley he had found himself in. A young man in government clothing eyed him curiously as he passed by. He sneered. No, not a very friendly place at all. Still, Leningrad—St. Petersburg, he meant, was something of a marvel. Tall, spiraling towers lit up the night, set aflame with colorful lights orchestrated by the General Secretary. They seemed to almost touch the sky…

He let his feet wander around even more, at times closing his eyes and mumbling to himself, his lips moving with soundless words. Oh, God. What was to be done?

So much change was happening. With his Soviet Union, with the people on the streets, with the world. Everything was crumbling, like someone had paraded around this land and trumpeted for it to fall to the ground. What would be left of them? There was so much unrest.

The Winter Soldier was no exception. He was losing his grip on things… What Mikhail had seen from the hall had been disturbing at most. The gentleness in which The Winter Soldier, a feared weapon, had treated a dead girl, was horrific. And what if there was to be a review? How long could Mikhail continue to keep his location covert and secret before some foreign diplomat or government discovered the truth?

That Mother Russia had no intention of killing itself from the inside. The KGB would not, necessarily, fall.

 _Soldat_ was not expendable, but Mikhail certainly was, and he knew this well. The question was how to alter things to his advantage. _Soldat_ might be easier to communicate with and be kept in check when he was sober, but he was much more…submissive and _pliable_ , in a way, fresh after washing.

Something sparked on the tip of his conscience, but he snuffed it away like he always did. It flickered a bit, then disappeared entirely.

The swirling wind gathered around his coat, and he pulled his parka closer around his thin frame. This was no time for a question of morality. It was survival.

"Prokhodi, synok." _Come in, son._

He jumped in his skin, spinning around.

The face of an elderly priest greeted him. "Eto kholodno." _It's cold._

Speaking of morality…

He was about to refuse, but as the wind continued to pick up strength, he simply nodded, stepping through the doors of the cathedral he had found himself in front of.

The inside of the cathedral was surely only something a Russian could dream up. It was an explosion of color, a kaleidoscope of mosaics and famous religious scenes, lit and set aflame by chandeliers and spotlights. Paints and ladders and brushes and other supplies were organized in a corner of the huge inner room.

The priest explained that they were in the middle of restoration, but it was fine if strangers wished to stay the night. After all, it had been a fully functioning church at one point—why not carry on the tradition of sanctuary?

Mikhail nodded as the priest walked away, still staring up the art above him. He grabbed on to a nearby pew, using his hands to feel for a seat.

It was like following a drama. A man sitting down with other men at a feast, but that one man almost brighter than the rest. The same man teaching a large crowd of people, then spread out on a cross—the crucifixion, Mikhail remembered from his early teaching. His nanny had been firm, yet cautious in his education. The Soviet Union had outlawed and disregarded religion, but it, like KGB, he realized, could never truly die.

Would that make him a Judas, then?

It wasn't as if he were betraying anyone. _Soldat_ was an asset. _The_ Asset. Hell, Mikhail didn't even think he was human anymore.

Yet why did he feel so strange? Could it be that he was betraying himself?

No. Enough. Enough!

Without a word to the priest who had returned with a cup of tea, Mikhail grabbed his hat and rushed out of the church and into the snow.

As he ran to the nearest phone booth and dialed the number he knew Vladimir would still be using, a thought passed over his head. An old prayer his Nanny had once uttered when he had walked by her door one evening.

 _Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst command us to love our enemies, and those who defame and injure us, and to pray for them and forgive them…_

"Vlad? Is that you, Vlad? …yes. It must happen soon. What? You want me to…?"

 _Who Thyself didst pray for Thine enemies, who crucified thee: grant us, we pray, the spirit of Christian reconciliation and meekness, that we may heartily forgive every injury and be reconciled with our enemies_

"Of course. Tomorrow evening?"

 _Grant us to overcome the malevolence and offenses of people with Christian meekness and true love of our neighbor._

"Fine. Yes. It's gotten out of control, Vlad. I'm at the end of my line, here… Yes. Yes, I see."

 _We further beseech Thee, O Lord, to grant to our enemies true peace and forgiveness of sins; and do not allow them to leave this life without true faith and sincere conversion._

"Of course I can handle it. Yes, yes, he'll be there."

 _And help us repay evil with goodness, and to remain safe from the temptations of the devil and from all the perils which threaten us, in the form of visible and invisible enemies._

"I'll be sure of it."

 _Amen._

Even as he hung up the phone and trampled his way through the snow, he knew there would be no forgiveness for him that night.

* * *

 _Four Seasons Hotel, Prague. Late Spring, 2005._

"I thought KGB was no longer in business," said Agent Hill, carrying both their bags through the lobby.

"Sure they're not," said Clint. He took off his aviators and set them on his head. "And I'm a feisty, middle-aged latina housewife."

Agent Hill nearly dropped their luggage.

"Come on, Maria! We've only got a few more hours before the gala!"

She sighed and heaved their cases to the elevator. "And why am I carrying everything?"

He looked back at her as if she had just asked the most stupid question in the whole of humanity. "Because you're a newbie?"

"Because I'm a newbie?"

"Well, that's what I just said. Now all you're doing is repeating it."

Maria shook her head. "You know, you're pretty insufferable."

"And you're a shoe, so start walking."

"I get the feeling…and tell me if I'm wrong…that you would much rather be doing this alone."

"You're kidding."

"I'm just saying…"

"Really?"

"I know."

"How'd you guess?"

She made a face and punched the elevator button to the seventh floor. "Call it intuition."

Hawkeye scoffed. "Look, we're going after one of the greatest assassins the world has ever seen. Well, besides me."

Maria rolled her eyes.

"No, listen. She's calculating, cool, and honestly kinda hot. If Fury wanted me to take her out, why wouldn't he only send me so there's less potential collateral? Or at least, less people involved to make things less suspicious."

The elevator dinged at the fourth floor, and an elderly man with a mustache stepped inside, pressing the button for the tenth.

"Well, I dunno," Maria whispered in his ear, "Maybe it's so you don't have to beg for a date."

"That hurts."

"I meant it to hurt."

"Even if that was the case," he whispered back, eyeing the elevator's new occupant, "Why you, of all people? I mean, you're new! What's this, your first mission?"

"Forty-fifth."

"Shit, really?"

"Captain Maria Hill," she saluted him, "At your service."

He blinked.

The elevator pinged.

"This is our floor," she said, dragging their suitcases behind her.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said to himself, shaking his head.

"Maybe I'm the shoe," she continued, taking out their room key and inserting it into the door, "Because if this mission goes sour, I'm your best chance at making sure she doesn't make it out of Prague alive."


	5. Chapter 4

It is like waking up from a dream. That one moment where everything is calm, peaceful. Like she exists and she doesn't all at once. She is aware of herself, her body, her thoughts, and her breathing. Nothing else. Here, she doesn't need anything else.

Natalia raises her hand, watching as the image flows and ripples slightly in her vision. She is swimming in her own mind.

 _There is no past, no future. There is only now._

She is aware of someone speaking to her, but she can't make out the words. Everything begins to fade in and out of focus.

Professor Pchelintsov's treatments are always like this. A paradise in one's mind.

"What is your name, Child?"

A voice. Clear and sharp through the thickness she is wading in.

"Natalia Romanova." She feels a certain ease in replying, like with every word, she is letting go of something weighty and thick.

"Good. And where do you come from?"

"Nowhere."

"And why is that?"

She rolls her head to the side. Giggles. "Spiders don't come from anywhere."

"Are you certain, my dear?"

Her body pulses with her heartbeat.

"I am here to serve the Motherland," she says, as if it is painfully obvious. "I need no home."

"And why do you do this?"

She thinks for a moment. "For the good of all. For Russia. For our Union."

"Yes. Quite right."

With this, her vision fades, colors and shapes quickly shifting to somewhere else, somewhere very unlike the cold and sterile environment of Professor Pchelintsov's laboratory.

She is standing in the woods, snow under her feet. She looks up and sees stars through the trees, bright and clear against the night sky.

"You are a warrior," the voice continues. She knows it is The Professor, but she cannot see him.

A low grumbling. A howl from the edge of the woods.

She shivers. She knows this place.

"You are the dark."

A wolf leaps out from behind a thick patch of dead trees. It bears its teeth at her.

"The salvation of your homeland. You will do what no man can ever accomplish."

She remembers. It is distant, but she can just touch it. She's been here before.

The wolf leaps at her, and she sideswipes it at the last moment, landing a kick to its head. It falls to the ground, whimpering, but getting quickly to its feet.

And everything is crimson. The sky is aflame, and as the wolf howls, more join in with its song.

She feels like every cell in her body is on fire.

"You will follow orders, Widow. You will do as you are told. You are loyal to one: you are loyal to The Red Room."

"Yes," she replies over the wind. "Yes, I am."

"You are loyal to The Red Room," the voice repeats. More wolves gather from the reaches of the forest. Their teeth are sharp and stained red.

"I-I am," she says. Her vision blurs—sputters. Like static, a bad signal on a television set.

"You are loyal to The Red Room."

"But I've just said I am!"

"You are loyal to The Red Room."

The signal widens, and it is though a dam has broken.

 _Pain_. So much pain. It floods her senses, touches every nerve she knows.

Is she? Is this really who she is?

She tries to speak, but finds she cannot.

Who is Natalia Romanova?

Memories flood her mind. She doesn't know where they've come from until she realizes with horror that they are hers.

The wolves begin to close in on her.

"You will be loyal, Widow. You will follow orders. Without us, you do not exist."

Just as quickly as they appeared, the memories begin to fade. She tries to reach out and touch them, one last time, but they dissipate into the air. One wolf jumps at her, and she quickly flips in the air and twists out of the way, throwing punches and kicks as though her life depended on it.

And in a way, perhaps it does.

She grabs a fallen tree branch and brandishes it as a weapon. Just like practice. Just like a baton.

"You have no place in the world."

Even as she continues to fight the beasts, one by one, she knows this to be true.

And then the flames engulf her. And she knows nothing, once more.

* * *

Professor Pchelintsov checked her vitals. A bit above normal, but nothing too worrying. He makes a note on his clipboard from the pen in his coat pocket.

He was still scribbling down notes when Madame Gorbachev walked in.

"Professor," she said.

He jumped a bit, but nodded in greeting.

Madame Gorbachev stared down at the operating chair. "How is she this time?"

The Professor coughed. "Surprisingly well. She's gone much farther in her own mind than any of the other subjects."

Madame Gorbachev ran a hand over Natalia's sweaty brow. "My little monster." She turned to The Professor. "She must learn to destroy her fears."

"Oh, it is more than that," said The Professor. "This exercise is very complex. She is not battling just her past, but her future, as well." He wiped his hands on his lab coat, shedding it and tossing it in a nearby bin. "The serum can take many forms, but for her, well, I suppose fighting for her life is akin to what it does to her biologically." He shrugged. "It's merely a side effect."

"Yet it works in our favor. Well done, Professor."

He smiled.

"Now…about that issue we discussed—"

"Oh, yes!" He leapt from his seat and began rummaging through drawers. He "aha"ed when he came upon a small bottle filled with green liquid. He handed it to her. "One shot, twice a week, and whatever symptoms you've been feeling should disappear."

"Should?" She took the bottle from him and inspected it.

"Well, in the realm of science, anything is possible. Especially in my realm. But there's nothing to fear! No, in saying _should_ , I merely mean that, well, it should. You know that what we're dealing with is experimental at best."

"A thirty-year experiment," she sighed, holding the bottle to the light.

"If you'll forgive me for saying so…I'd have to say that you look remarkable, especially given the circumstances."

"Circumstances?"

"Why, yes! The technology in America thirty years ago was no where near to the degree Russian standards today are held. Despite the side effects, you look like you've hardly aged a day!"

"You think so?" she laughed as she eyed her reflection in one of the various instruments Professor Pchelintsov used in his lab.

He nodded incessantly. "Would that Director Carter could see you now."

Madame Gorbachev froze in her place. Her lips tightened over her teeth. "Damn that woman," she whispered.

"I'm sorry?"

"Damn that Peggy Carter!" she gasped. The gasp quickly turned into a cough, and she ran over to the sink, heaving and shaking.

The Professor made to reach for her, but she held a hand up.

"The…the injection!"

He reached over Natalia's body and grabbed an unused syringe, filled it with the green solution, and jabbed it into her leg, releasing the liquid.

Slowly, Madame Gorbachev stopped coughing, color returning to her cheeks. She sighed, cringing at the blood in the bowl of the sink. "I can't go now, Grigor. Not when we're this close to achieving greatness."

He nodded. "I know."

She eyed the bottle again. "How long does this stuff last?"

"As long as it needs to."

Truthfully, he could recreate the serum any time he wished. The only trouble was that the original serum, the one Madame Gorbachev had used with her communist friends thirty years ago, had its own drawbacks. His new formula accounted for much that whatever chemist or scientist back then had never even considered. The compatibility of the two, however, would be impossible. So while he could recreate the original serum, Madame Gorbachev could never be like the Black Widows she was training up.

He often wondered how heavily this weighed on her. Her rivalry with Peggy Carter was something else, but somehow, he felt that looking younger and becoming stronger would do nothing to tame her emotions. What a pity. _Emotions_. Such a waste on such a lovely face.

She needed a distraction. "What is your opinion of your new teacher?" he asked.

A smirk arose from her colored lips. "I rather like him. And you?"

"I think he is dangerous."

"Of course he is. Why do you think I like him?"

"Dangerous to the program." He leaned back in his seat, wheeling it around to check Natalia's vitals again. Normal. She was going to wake up soon. "What do we really know about him?"

"He fights for KGB. He is loyal. He is a professional sniper and a master at martial arts. That's all I need to know."

"But you don't find that… There's something about him. I have seen this in many of my patients."

"You think he could be brainwashed? Why would that ever be a problem?"

"It depends. The Winter Soldier is a legend—much like our Black Widow Program. No one really knows much about who he is, where he's come from. He's enhanced, that's for certain, but there is something…something messy about him. He's far too jagged."

Madame Gorbachev sat down opposite him on a stool. "If he does his work well and trains the girls, I don't have an issue with his methods."

"I am just unsure if he is fit to work under Leviathan."

"Leviathan is dead."

"Not…entirely. Dead, no. Dying, yes." He smiled. "You of all people know, Leviathan can never truly die. It is tied too closely to KGB, and God help us if they ever try to snuff that department out. Still… It would be worth doing some digging."

Madame Gorbachev shrugged. "If it keeps you sane at night. Fine."

A moan surfaced from the center of the room.

"I'd best be going," she said. "And thank you, for the serum."

The Professor nodded and watched as she left the room and shut the door behind her.

"Professor?"

Natalia sat up on the chair, rubbing her temple with her hands.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She let her hand drop and straightened her spine. Her lips were drawn tight. "Ready and willing to serve The Motherland."

There was something behind her eyes that made him smile. Oh, yes.

She would become his greatest creation.

* * *

When The Winter Soldier next saw her, she was standing with her back to him, her long grey gown streaked with blood. He knew the upperclassmen occasionally went on missions, but never actually saw any leave the mansion. So if he was surprised by her alluring evening attire and decided that he liked that her hair was curled and silky, steadily growing perhaps even a bit more intrigued than he should have been, he tossed it all up to plain curiosity.

"Long day?"

Natalia spun around.

Evidently, it had been. As he looked closer, he noticed that her hair was more mussed up than it was curly, and her face had been littered with scratches and the occasional gash. But these were only surface wounds, and her expression was one of a fighter.

"Are you going to stare at me all evening, _Soldat_?"

He grinned. "Depends. Would you like me to?"

She scoffed and turned back to the statue.

"Look," he said, "I feel like we ended things badly last time we spoke."

She did not reply.

He bit his lip, and, shrugging, looked up at the statue as well. It took up much of one corner of the hall. The woman portrayed was a giantess among men, easily ten feet tall, with her arms at her side and her eyes set forward. It must have been some sort of replica from the Greek ages, he guessed, evident much by her tunic and the style of her hair. But though her voluptuous figure and dress might not exactly have been ethnic Russian, her face somehow echoed the same expression he found in Natalia.

"An Amazon," Natalia said after a moment. "Notice how she has no weaponry, yet stares down at her enemy with the knowledge that she will win."

"What are you, an art connoisseur?"

She sniffed. "An enthusiast. And I know the strength of a woman when I see it."

There was no arguing that. After gazing at the statue for a couple more moments, he was beginning to see what she meant. That very same expression—

"Determination."

She didn't reply.

He continued. "I've seen this look before. Only the best soldiers and spies have this. They say that determination can kill you in the end if you go into a fight you know you have no chance of winning, but I think in some ways, that's the difference between giving up and fighting on. The mark of a true warrior." His skin prickled a bit, his hair standing up on end, as if there was something familiar about this conversation. He was about to step away when he felt a warm hand on his metal shoulder.

"I agree."

It was either the strange deja vu from the conversation or the hand on the cold metal of his shoulder, or some mix of both, that made every nerve in his body suddenly very much aware of his surroundings. Was he…was he _nervous_?

No. _No_. What a ridiculous thought! He'd been in far more trying situations than this, much more intimate, much more covert. Through it all, as far as he could remember or had written down in his notebooks, never once had he been nervous, of all things. He made a face, trying to push the heat from his cheeks.

"Are you alright?"

Oh, wonderful.

She was facing him now, eyeing him with just a bit more curiosity before. "The mark of a true warrior," she repeated, "This is something we Russians know best. We do not give up; we do not let our preconceptions get in the way of our mission, our goal, our perspective. We strive forward for a better future by envisioning it and making it happen."

"Sounds like one hell of a marketing campaign. You should make posters."

"I thought the secret weapon of the Soviet Union was supposed to be stoic and silent." Natalia smirked. "You know, I saw you the other day with the underclassmen. You were teaching them how to block a blow while snapping their enemies' neck. And yet you make jokes about propaganda… You intrigue me, _Soldat_."

"In a good way, I hope."

"There it is again! Tell me, _Soldat_ , how do you feel about vodka and bar fights?"

"I make it a policy not to date students."

She swat at his flesh arm. "It's my day off, and I need to scout my target. Care to accompany as comrade?"

He thought back to what Madame Gorbachev had said, about digging deeper. With his training today out of the way, there couldn't be a better opportunity. "With two of my favorite things, it's hard to say no."

"Good." She looked him up and down. "However," she said, wiping her smudged makeup with a cloth from her bag, "You may want to change."

* * *

It had stopped snowing for the day, but during Russian Winter, he had quickly learned it would not be long before it would start up again. As he stepped outside and onto the pavement, he looked down the fields beyond the mansion, watching as what he could see of the sun slowly began its descent from scattered clouds. It would be a clear night if the weather kept going in this direction.

He checked his watch. 1600 hours. It had always amazed him how the sun rose and set differently in different places of the world. And from what he could remember, he had always liked to see them all. He would finish a kill and look up to the explosion of colors of sun against the sky, and somehow think that the astounding painting in front of him could only have been crafted by something much greater than him. Perhaps a Hydra higher-up had ordered it. They always seemed to appreciate beauty much more than him.

Well. He supposed it depended on the type of beauty. There was one area in which he considered himself an expert.

When Natasha came out with a car from around the back and stopped in front of him, he barely even noticed the sun had finally set. She had changed clothes as well, dressed snuggly in a double-breasted white coat that reached her ankles, fur-lined white gloves, and a white pillbox fur hat that let her red hair hang lose underneath.

The perfect civilian.

She motioned for him to get in. "I am driving," she said, her accent thicker than normal.

He nodded. "Khorosho." _Okay_.

As she revved the engine and sped past the gates to the school, he could hear her chuckle. He looked over to her, head slightly tilted.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, eyes keeping towards the road. "You're just not what I was expecting."

It wasn't like he was going to go undercover in his combat gear. That would draw a crowd. Or two.

Instead, he had borrowed—well, he preferred the term borrowed, but it wasn't like they were going to use it today anyway—a long-sleeve black turtleneck, a brown checked peacoat, a scarf, and dark green pants from the laundry area. Only his combat boots gave him away, but he shrugged it off. If anyone did happen to look down, they wouldn't think much of it. This was Russia in a time of trouble.

He did, however, take time to comb through his gnarled hair and shave his beard a bit. It wasn't clean and wasn't neat, but it looked more like he hadn't slept in a few days, and less like he was slowly becoming a hermit.

When he had looked in the mirror after cleaning up, he was shocked to see that for once in he guessed a very long while, he could actually pass as a random, nameless man. He didn't look too horrible, he thought, so if Natalia considered him to be 'not what she was expecting…' Well, that could mean any number of things. There was a part of him he did not wish to recognize fully that secretly hoped she had been pleasantly surprised. But as soon as the thought had passed, it dissipated, like it was dark smoke trapped in a room and someone quickly lifted a window to the outside.

His hair hung loose in front of his face as he stared out the window, watching lights reflect off snowbanks and old men with tattered clothes and day old stubble walk down dirt paths with glowing cigarettes perched in their mouths.

"Who's the subject?" he found himself saying.

Natalia turned left. He recognized this as the lower, slimier part of the city. And he knew the underbelly could grow steadily worse.

"Ilya Katavasov," she answered. "I am to record everything he does tonight."

"Is he a traitor?"

"They don't tell me. Practice in observation, they say."

"Then," he said, a thin smile on his lips, "We'll find out just who is this Ilya Katavasov."

Natalia chuckled. "That's not really the point," she said as she parked the car. "It's a few blocks from here."

They walked together past throngs of crowds in search of nightlife, soldiers with guns slung over their backs, old men and women eyeing each other wearily as they rubbed their hands together in the cold.

Finally, they came to a dirty little bar on the corner of a random street with a very forgettable name. The Winter Soldier eyed the area with caution. This was the perfect place for the exchange of information, illicit affairs, or secret meetings. Why would KGB send _Natalia_ for observation?

As he began to open the door, Natalia leaned into him, lips near the tender part of his ear.

"Your name is Nikolai Fyodorovych, you are a reporter for _Izvestia_ , and you're taking a lovely young girl out for a drink. Sorry about your policy." She smiled and laughed a bit as they walked through the door.

He coughed a bit as they stepped in. The place even smelled drunk.

The bar had seen better days, but still retained its early charm, with cushioned booths on one side and the bar on the other. Mirrors and newspaper clippings and posters pockmarked the back wall, giving the whole atmosphere a standstill, timeless aura.

He slipped easily into character, placing one hand around her waist and the other on her cheek. "Madame Gorbachev will not be happy."

Natalia smiled wide, leading him to a table in the corner of the bar. "I think she would approve." She picked up a menu, scanned it over once, and called for a waiter in rapid Russian. After he had returned with their drinks, she leaned over to The Winter Soldier again, taking his gloved metal hand in hers. "Black suit, red tie, thin as a rail, three o'clock."

He covered her hand with his, and leaned back, pretending to stretch. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Ilya, throwing back shots at the bar. "He seems on edge."

She nodded. "And now," she said, stirring her drink while keeping her eyes trained on his, "we watch."

Ilya Fyodorovych had his head in his hands, fingers running through his oily strands of blond. His clothing reeked of money, but the sweat stains that were quickly gathering under his arms and neck made it look shabby. He quickly summoned the bartender, requesting yet another shot of vodka. The bartender rolled his eyes, but served him. Ilya nodded in thanks and downed the shot, scrambling through his wallet for the bills.

The wind howled as the door opened, revealing two ugly-looking men with nasty scars on their faces. Ilya looked up at the newcomers and immediately shrunk in his seat.

"They look like someone punched them in the face and it stayed that way," said Natalia.

The Winter Soldier cocked his head to the side, now very interested. What did Ilya do to get involved with the Rusak Brothers?

The two men approached Ilya on either side of the bar, each taking a stool behind him. One, the larger, glared at him, while the smaller clapped his back and whispered something in his ear. Ilya either pretended not to hear, or all together ignored him as he stared into his empty shot glass.

To The Winter Soldier, the implications were clear.

But that was when Ilya turned around, glancing nervously around the bar. That was when The Winter Soldier recognized the man. If even the smallest bit of shock passed his face, Ilya hadn't noticed, only turning back to his glass and shaking a bit as the smaller of the brothers gestured for the bartender to pour him another shot.

It couldn't be. Why would KGB, why would The Red Room be interested in a Hydra agent?

And what was a Hydra agent doing mixed up with the Rusak Brothers?

Something wasn't right here.

He made to rise from his seat, but Natalia quickly placed a hand on his arm.

'What the hell are you doing?' her eyes asked.

He could supply her no answer. He was caught. Caught between his cover and a high-up he was meant to be in service to. And if the Rusak brothers saw him here, after what he did to their family…

What would that mean for Natalia?

He had to think quickly. If he interrupted her work, she could be penalized, and Hydra would be that much farther away from recruiting a Black Widow. There was no doubt that they could fight their way out of the bar, but at what cost?

"Sit down!" she said, a bit louder than she should have.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the larger of the brothers slowly turning his head in their direction.

He stared at Natasha, taking her face in his hands. "Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable," he whispered. "I know them."

Her eyes widened.

He hoped she would understand.

When he kissed her, he was surprised at how both foreign and natural it seemed to be. Like the breath of fresh air he would gulp into his lungs when he took off his mask after a mission. It was sweet, quick, and soft. Warm. He hadn't expected the warmth.

"Laugh," he said, pulling away.

She laughed, stealing a glance at the bar. "They're not looking anymore," she said under her breath as she ran a hand down his arm. "But you owe me an explanation."

"Later."

"No," she said, sipping her drink, "Now."

He weighed his options. Finally, he said, "The Rusak Brothers, Anatoly and David—I destroyed their family. They may recognize me."

"Even without the mask?"

"…Yes."

"Bozhe moi… I didn't anticipate this." _My God…_

"They're not even supposed to be here. Last I heard, they were slumming it in Siberia."

Natalia looked down at her nails, looking up for just a second to the back wall mirrors. "They're still talking. But we shouldn't leave. Not just yet. It would cause too much attention, now that they're here. What can you tell me about the brothers?"

Nothing she would want to know. He had to go about this carefully. "They're smugglers. _Bratva_. Supporting underground intelligence with weapons, loaning money to politicians and to fix elections. If you can't pay them back, well…"

"So what do they want with Ilya?"

"I'd like to know that as well."

There was a loud crash and they both whirled around. The bigger of the two brothers, David, was now holding a squirming Ilya by the neck, with Anatoly leaning into him and whispering in his ear.

The bartender made to stop them, showing them a gun he had concealed underneath his shirt. His face was impassive, but even the shorter brother could see beads of sweat on his large brow. Anatoly stepped back from Ilya, slowly raising his hands in the air.

That was when David turned around and shot him.

The bartender hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Someone screamed, and people began scrambling to the door.

The Winter Soldier swore under his breath. "We need to leave. Now."

"No, not yet-"

"You signed up for observation, not a goddamn fight!"

"Well he's not supposed to die!"

"And what, you're supposed to assume that?"

"I need more information, and if he dies, poof! There it goes."

"No. If he dies, that's your information."

"See all those details? They're flying by in the wind. Poof!"

"Are you kidding…derr`mo. Look, you've got plenty of information, now let's just—oh." _…sh*t_

Anatoly and David stared at them from across the room, Ilya still grasped tightly in a headlock, seemingly more annoyed than anything else.

"And you are?!" he screamed.

Oh, wonderful. "Nikolai Fyodorovych?" The Winter Soldier replied, though to his chagrin it sounded more like a question than an answer. "I work at _Izvestia_?"

"And I am Natasha!" said Natalia, thickening her accent and slurring her words. She ran her fingers though his hair and kissed the side of his jaw, "And he is my lover."

David cocked his head to the side, still staring at The Winter Soldier. His brow furrowed. "I know this man."

"You do?" asked his brother.

"You should, too. This is the man that took Liliya!"

Ilya looked desperate now. "Who's Liliya?!"

"You mean… Dmitry? Eto piz'dets!" _This is f*$%ed up_

"I will cut off your genitals and feed them to the pigs, you mu'dak!" _a**hole_

"Really, you don't want to do this."

"You think you can do that to _her_ and get away with it?"

Natalia full-on smirked. "Observation's over. You forget, Dmitry," she said, cracking her neck, "I am a Black Widow."

'Not yet,' was on the tip of his tongue, but he sighed instead. "Comrades. You want a fight?" He grabbed a bottle from a nearby table and slammed it against the surface, bubbly liquid spilling out from the now broken neck. "Come and get one."

He had nearly enough time to duck before Anatoly took a shot at him.

"You don't bring a gun to a gunfight?" said Natalia, kickboxing David in the face, who cried out, blood spewing from his nose. He waved his gun at her, finger on the trigger, but she kicked it out of his hand, flipped herself in the air and wrapped her legs around his neck, throwing punches to the nape.

The Winter Soldier backhanded Anatoly with his left arm, sending him sprawling across the bar, glasses spilling and shattering in his wake.

"Don't need one."

Anatoly groaned but sprung back up, awkwardly meeting The Winter Soldier punch for punch. But he was too slow. The Winter Soldier grabbed his arm with his metal one, twisting it around, holding the broken bottle with his other. He pressed it against Anatoly's throat. "What do you want with Katavasov?"

Anatoly gasped, wincing. "Oh, god. Are you…going to finish me like you did her?"

Natalia flipped David over and held him in an armlock, ramming his head into the wooden bar. He fell to the ground, unconscious. "Just," she breathed, "Answer the damn question."

Sirens rang out in the distance. The Winter Soldier knew it wouldn't be long before they had to leave. As he stared down at Anatoly, he was surprised to find the smaller man almost smiling.

"Is something funny?" asked Natalia.

Anatoly lolled his head to the side, grinning from ear to ear. "Very," he croaked, "if you know the joke." He pointed to The Winter Soldier. "You have no idea, do you, Dmitry?"

"Answer the question," she repeated.

"Who you really are."

He could see bile rise from the corner of—no. That wasn't bile. Shit. "Natalia, he used a cyanide pill." He started shaking the man, "Come on, Anatoly! What did you want with Katavasov?!"

But Anatoly just laughed. "Hail H-," he began to choke; but he stuttered, his smiling face turning to confusion. "Lili," was all he said before he fell from the Winter Soldier's arms, collapsing on the floor beside his brother.

Hail? Hail Hydra? How could the Rusak Brothers be working for Hydra? The Winter Soldier's mind was whirring, the shock plastered over his face. Why was Natalia sent here? What was The Red Room's deal with Hydra?

"Well this is something for my report," said Natalia, shaking her head. "Ilya got away."

And why did Anatoly laugh at him?

The sirens were growing closer. The Winter Soldier shook his thoughts away to clear his head. He stood up. Cringed. The entire bar was trashed.

"We need to leave."

"And what will we do with this?" She gestured to the two prone bodies. "David is still alive."

"Leave them. Let him explain the mess." He walked towards the back door. "I doubt a Rusak Brother has much to say to the police."

Bang!

When he turned around, he saw Natalia standing over David. She kicked his body to the side with her heel, smoothed out her coat, and pocketed her gun. "No survivors."

He chuckled, "And where was that five minutes ago?"

Natalia shrugged. "Didn't need it."

They reached the back door just as the police pulled up in front of the bar. They raced down the alley, jumping over dumpsters and fences. The air was somehow colder than it had been before.

Reaching the car, Natalia bent over, heaving. "God, you have stamina." She looked him up and down. "What do you do, four hours of cardio a day?"

"Something like that."

She laughed. "And-and that way you just swept Anatoly down the bar! Just did you get that arm?"

He was about to answer, but was surprised to find that he couldn't. That was strange.

"Ah, don't tell me," she said, climbing into the driver's seat. "Keep your secret. Some things aren't meant to be known."

"Do you think?" he asked, shutting the door as she started the engine.

"I think…I think it doesn't really matter what I think. Well, I do think one thing." She turned to him. "Join me again, next week. What do you think?"

"I think…I'd like that. But _no_ bar fights."

"Are you sure? Seems like you did pretty well for yourself."

"We don't need the attention."

"Fair enough."

In the dead of night, the car sped on, solitary in the world of white around it. It had, in a very Russian way, begun to snow again. The roads would be icy and slippery, but Natalia handled the vehicle with skill. They would make it back to the mansion before the roads closed.

As The Winter Soldier thought more in depth about the bar fight, he found that there were so many pieces that all seemed so related, but whenever he tried to glue them together, it was like the parts just fell apart in his hands. Even more curious, nothing like this had ever happened before. He was always on the ball, always put together. Usually, he could see the big picture, add up all the smaller ones, and make a masterpiece of events that all led up to a single conclusion; now, it seemed as though everything was disorganized, like he couldn't put all the information in chronological order, in lists alphabetically, or even in relation to each other.

He was missing something. Something important. Did it have to do with how they cleared his mind after each mission?

There was a door blocking his thoughts and it simply would not let him pass.

"Still… Public displays of affection?"

He smiled. "Shut up."

* * *

They pulled up to the school at 2100. It wasn't exactly late, but it wasn't early either, Natalia had reminded him. Sleep was imperative to spies, especially learning how to compress it into a short period of time.

"I need to work on that," she said, boots imprinting in the snow beneath her. She stopped before they arrived at the door. "But I did mean it. What I said about joining me next week. I'm sure Madame Gorbachev wouldn't mind."

"I'm sure," he said.

Light from the lamps above them caused the snow-covered fields to glow as the road faded into the distance. He could see that same glow in Natalia's face, in her eyes—he could feel it flowing through himself.

"Until tomorrow," he said. His voice shook a bit when he said it, and he cringed internally. Damn. She wasn't getting to him, was she? Oh, she was smooth, this almost-Widow.

"Goodnight," she said in turn.

And then she completely surprised him.

Silently, with the falling snow as her backdrop, she took his metal hand in hers and pulled off his glove. He could only watch as she rubbed her thumb against its surface, an image of her face shining in its reflection. Then, she brought the hand up to her lips, and kissed it.

"Not just a weapon," she whispered. "Still a man. Remember that, da?"

As she walked away, all he could do was stare into the wind, her words echoing through his bones.

"Da."

* * *

He was dreaming again. And he knew he was dreaming, because when you're dreaming, nothing seems to make sense. Everything is slightly off, though you might not realize it in the moment. No, bananas are not purple, neither is your childhood neighbor sipping tea with your dog in the parlor.

Ah! Such scrambled thoughts as the mind tries to make sense of the day. It sifts through every memory, every moment, and categorizes them in detail, puts together a photo album of memories for you to read and review the next day.

In the moment, when you're dreaming, anything can happen.

The wind was howling again. He wished it would simply go away. "Bucky!" it called out.

It was louder this time. He sighed. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, would the wind ever just shut the hell up!

Another thing about dreams. Anything can happen, but everything can be forgotten when you wake up.

When The Winter Soldier dreamt, he remembered everything from the last dream only while dreaming. He thought it was a bit strange, but he chalked it all up to whatever random thoughts were floating around in his mind tonight.

"Bucky!" the wind called out again.

He sighed. "Who the hell is that!?"

He could swear he'd said that line a thousand times.

However, on this night, the wind decided to answer.

It was like opening a door to a room in an abandoned building you'd been dared to enter. It was dark out and the paint was chipping and there were loose window shutters, and of course, it was as silent as the grave. His fingers made contact with the doorknob, and with not much effort, he turned it, and slowly pulled open the door wide.

"I'm you," said the wind.

Standing in front of him, in foreign clothes but those same blue eyes, was a perfect copy…of himself.

But before he could have a chance to speak, the copy shushed him. "Stay with me, Pal," it said, holding a hand out while looking up to the sky, "Someone's coming."

All The Winter Soldier could do was stare at that one hand. His left hand. _His_ left hand!

It was flesh.

This was all too much. Here he was, in a dream, talking with a dream self who didn't happen to have a metal arm and who didn't have even a hint of a Russian accent. This just took the cake, didn't it? Boy, if Steve could see him now.

He froze. He tried to breathe, but it was like there was something caught in his throat that wouldn't let any air in. Oh, God. Where had that thought come from? Feelings began to rush through his veins, his mind bubbling over and spilling into his senses.

Everything was too dark, too light, too loud and just not loud enough.

It was then that floodlights seemed to entrap him in their glare, and he felt caught and held down and…hang on.

The Winter Soldier woke up with a start.

He took one look around and felt bile rise in his throat. He knew what this was.

 _Mashina_. He only knew it by that name, the device they used to wipe whatever they wanted to after every mission. Right before they froze him once more, and years, decades would pass and he'd be none the wiser.

He tried to move, but was held down tight by restraints.

"Hello, Soldat," said a voice. "Cry out all you want, they can't hear you from here."

"Ilya Katavasov."

The blond man stood above him, arms crossed. "I don't think we run in the same circles, but forgive me, my mistake. I must say, it was quite interesting to see you and the little spider out and about today. What Leviathan must let you do…Oh, but I don't blame you," he shook his head, "Not in the slightest."

" _Leviathan_?"

"Ah, so they haven't told you yet." Ilya shrugged, sitting down on an empty crate. "Now's as good a time as any to talk. Besides, it's not like you'll remember it, in any case."

"What's your deal with the Rusak Brothers?"

Ilya sighed. "My, did they make you talkative. A decade ago and I hear you were hardly even cohesive."

He couldn't understand what Ilya was talking about, but even he could tell this wasn't usual protocol. "The mission is not complete."

"No, it isn't."

Silence fell over the room.

"Then…why—"

"You're defective, soldier! KGB let you out for one reason, and for one reason only." He leaned in close, whispering as he tugged at his hair. "To capture a Black Widow." He laughed. "Can't you understand? What didn't they tell you? …Fine, then.

"The Rusak Brothers were my business, until I noticed you and had to play along. You think you know what happened to Liliya? You're wrong. We tell you what to forget and what to remember.

"Everything you do has been programmed, down to the last sneeze. We allow this. We allow you to get along with Natalia. We allow you to have some emotion. Your mission, Soldat, requires the finest realism. You need to get close to a Widow to find her weakness and build her back up. Hydra needs a Black Widow on it's side. You know this. But who knows which way this 'Cold War' as the Americans say, will end? With Leviathan revitalizing the program, we can accomplish this. Leviathan is a part of KGB. Leviathan builds weapons. We infiltrated KGB. We want a weapon should KGB fall." He paused. "Does this at all make sense to you, Soldat?"

He could hardly breathe. "I understand."

Ilya smiled coyly. "Good. I'm glad. But that isn't good enough. You see…we didn't figure that you would be _this_ real. Tell me…when was the last time since your last visit?"

The Winter Soldier tried to think back. "A few months."

Ilya tsked, "Too long, too long. You're losing your grip, Soldat."

But as The Winter Soldier thought back, a name kept on popping up, like buds from a sprouted seed. "Steve," he said, remembering what he had thought in front of his copy, "Who's Steve?"

"Exactly. Vlad, would you like to do the honors?"

Vlad inserted the guard into The Winter Soldier's mouth, then moved to more controls on the outer part of the unit.

He knew what was coming, but was still so confused. He hated it, every time they did this, but that was just what they did, and this was just who he was. It was what he did.

But was it always?

Steve…

Searing pain drove through his mind like a knife ever so slowly sliding through butter. Like it was nothing. Each and every memory he had was torn apart by the seams, ripped from his grasp.

He tossed his head back. He was sweating. They were adjusting some dials and whatever else there was over there.

Then it started up again. A part of him blindly wished Natalia wouldn't hear his screams, but even that, too, disappeared. Everything that made him who he was was snuffed out like a finger to the wick of a long-burning candle. Even the smoke was soon extinguished.

He was shivering, convulsing in the seat, his mind too stressed and broken for him to speak, much less think. There was only nothing, and he was nothing, and the people standing around him were nothing. Nothing but pain.

"Toska." _Longing_.

That was Mikhail speaking, wasn't it?

"Rzhavyy." _Rusted_.

"Pech'." _Furnace_.

"Rassvet." _Daybreak_.

 _"I thought you were dead," Steve had said._

"Semnadtsat'." _Seventeen_.

"Dobrokachestvennaya." _Benign_.

"Devyat'." _Nine_.

 _"I thought you were smaller," Bucky had replied._

"Vozvrashcheniye domoy." _Homecoming._

"Odin." _One._

"Tovarnyy vagon." _Freight car._

And suddenly, everything is crystal clear.

"Soldat?"

He makes no sound, eyes still closed. Purpose. Objective. Mission. Now.

Yes, he understands.

"Gotov vypolnit'." _Ready to comply._

* * *

 _U.S. Embassy in Prague. State Dinner. Late Spring, 2005. Prague, Czech Republic._

"I'm in," said Hawkeye, grinning at a pair of blondes walking by.

 _"Don't get distracted,"_ said Maria in his earpiece.

"I'm not!" he said, "You try going to State dinner where nobody speaks decent English besides—Mr. Ambassador, how are you this evening?"

As he shook the old man's hand, his eyes scanned the room. No sign of the Black Widow yet. He really, really wished he could be the one looking from the outside in, but no. Maria just had to go all field marshal on him and explain, in detail, why a man wearing a suit was far less conspicuous than her in a dress.

Though his curiosity remained piqued, he nevertheless regarded the whole thing as ridiculous.

Crap. Now he even sounded like her.

If he was going to have a partner, she should definitely not be Agent Hill. Not that he needed one.

 _"Intel confirms she's going to show up. There's this big oil trade that's on for tonight, and Russia would definitely not be happy if it goes through."_

"Really?" he asked, snatching a canapé from the buffet table. "There's gotta be more to it than that."

 _"That's what we've got. See her yet?"_

"Not yet," he said, letting out a surprised yelp when he bumped into someone. "Oh my god, I'm so-"

The dark-haired man just stared at him with vacant and vaguely annoyed eyes.

"Sorry?" Hawkeye finished as the man walked away. "That was weird."

 _"What was?"_

"It's nothing," he said, just as a feedback from microphone at the platform beyond him equaled in his ears.

"Sorry about that, everyone," smiled a blonde from the stage. "I want to thank you all for coming here tonight."

He nearly whistled. Now there was something.

"And a special thanks to Ambassador Cabaniss, of course." The blonde woman smiled as applause rang out. "Tonight is a very special occasion, and we'd like to honor…"

Clint stopped listening. Her face. That face. There was no way she could hide a face like that, and he was _good_ with faces.

"Maria," he whispered. "I found her."


	6. Chapter 5

It was dark when Natalia awoke. Her eyes opened wide, taking in the ceiling above her. She had seen the ceiling many times before, and this time was no different. There was still a small stain in the corner where water had collected years ago, something they must have missed when they had repainted the upperclassmen's wing.

Every morning when she had pried herself from her dreamworld, that stain was there to greet her, in spite of the inky blackness of the early hours. Something constant, steady. An 'always' that became a comfort in her life of 'maybe'.

Maybe there were traitors. Maybe there were suspects. Maybe they were telling the truth.

Maybe she was the traitor.

She let out a low moan, stretching under her sheets.

It was in the morning that she liked to climb down the stairs as quietly as she could and make her way to the training room. It was nice to practice when it was quiet. She could focus on her breathing, each inhale and exhale pressing her on further and further.

The studio in particular grew to be her favorite; after all, the front for The Red Room Academy had always been a ballet school. So the long mirrors that occupied one wall and long windows that took up the opposite one made for a beautiful performance.

The purples of dawn greeted her when she opened the doors and stepped inside. The floor, freshly waxed, gleamed under the light.

Her pointe shoes were just as she left them last night. Side by side, neatly placed in a far corner of the room, dwarfed by the mere size of the room. Not exactly new, but not too worn, either.

She laced them on, her reflection almost comical in the mirror, pink shoes in contrast to her ratty night shirt and shorts.

She had no music; that was reserved for actual performances, actual practices. But she knew the melodies of Lebedinoye Ozero by heart. _Swan Lake._

Tchaikovsky's ballet was bursting in her mind, her feet and legs and arms acting as if they were not her own, but they very much were. She had practiced like this before. It was not as rough or as terrifying as their usual practice; that was for combat purposes. No, this fluidity, this freedom, though it was only for her cover, was something she worked hard for and invested in personally.

She mentally shrugged. She didn't know why she liked it, but she supposed that it was lucky that she did, or else she never would have gotten the part for Odette in the first place. It would be a performance St. Petersburg would never forget, and a performance that would carry her to the top of her class.

Of course, there were still the tests. There were always tests. But surely, with this, the scale would be tipped in her favor. She would survive the Red Room. She knew she would.

It was only the last 32 fouettés that worried her. The most difficult part of the piece — spinning quickly while whipping a leg 32 times in a row. And all while keeping character, too. Odile, the Black Swan, was so different from her counterpart. Spotting while maintaining Odile's seductive darkness while keeping that KGB man's eyes on her would be trying.

Still. It was nothing she couldn't handle.

As the sun's first rays rose through the woods beyond the manor's grounds, Natalia danced to her imaginary music, watching her reflection spin in the mirror, seeing her lips curl into a smile when she finally came to a stop and continued onward like a bird to the sky.

There was always dress rehearsal when she drove to the city today, anyway. It would be perfect then, when she actually had a partner. Though she didn't have much to say for his personality, Ivan proved to be a fantastic dancer.

But she loved these few moments to herself. When her body became as moldable as caramel, stretching and twisting this way and that, gracefully melting one movement into the next, casting her imaginary audience spellbound with awe.

 _I am one of the twenty-six ballerinas_ …a lie she liked to believe was true. A lie that she sometimes believed too much.

It was when she dressed in her street clothes and turned a corner to the main door, keys jingling in hand, when it happened.

"S-Soldat?"

It had been days since she'd seen him last. After she'd kissed his metal hand just to get a reaction out of him, after she'd reported a failed mission and an escaped target. That hadn't been easy to explain.

In the middle of the dark hall stood the Winter Soldier, sans mask, clearly speaking with someone. His fingers were dripping with blood, his face full of cuts and gashes with teeth tinged red. Broken. That was only word she could come up with to describe him. She didn't know why, but the thought of it—of who or what could make a man who could beat _her_ broken—made her freeze.

He must have noticed her staring, and as he whipped his face around to bare down at hers with no hint of recognition, the door slammed shut in front of her.

Shock flooded her system. She knew he was dangerous, of course, but… To snarl at her, to not know her… That meant something had changed.

She had to know what was going on behind that door. Should she knock? They would let her in, of course. After all, she was the resident Prem'yer.

Or she could leave and go on the city like she'd planned. Ivan was waiting. Her routine needed its final touches. Ivan was a cute little distraction.

But not that cute.

Natalia dropped to her knees, checking the hall. No one coming in the early morning, not yet. She pressed an ear to the door, making out the words "Zadaniye vypolneno" and "Izmeneniye planov." _Mission complete, change of plans._

Then there was silence. She bit her lip. Were they whispering? She could not tell.

But there were footsteps.

The door swung open, and the Winter Soldier stepped into the doorway, a dark silhouette framed by the light from inside the office. He looked left, then right, and frowned. "Nichego," he called out to whoever he'd been speaking with. _Nothing_.

Hearing the door click shut again, Natalia peeked out from behind the corner. He was gone. Was this what he meant when he said he was a weapon? That he was brainwashed and broken and used, so much so that he did not recognize her just now?

These were thoughts for another time.

She checked her watch. Still on time. She could even pick up a nice little coffee for sweet, sweet innocent Ivan. That was where her loyalty lied, with KGB, with the Red Room Academy. She was to be the Black Widow, the best Black Widow. Her loyalty was with the Motherland, and not this chuzhoy. _Foreigner,_

It didn't matter in the end, she told herself as she walked to her car, feet crushing the snow beneath her. He was going to be there for three months to help train them, and that was it. Then he would be gone, melted into nothing like the snow would be come summertime.

She most definitely didn't care about him, she told herself as she put the key in the ignition and double checked her ballet bag on the passenger seat for her spare gun and lock-picking kit.

Just as it was when she'd packed it this morning.

But his coming to train them had been no accident. She knew this much. He must be part of her test, she was sure of it. Was she meant to subdue him? No; she could not do this physically, not yet, not with that metal arm. Perhaps gather intel on his handlers? The man he arrived with had seemed timid at best, but every so often when she would pass him in the hall, his bushy eyebrows would tilt up in more than strictly fascination. In a way that made her uneasy, only in that he looked at her with fear, awe, and unabashed want. She was used to men looking at her with such greed, of course, but there was something off about that sniveling creature… Mikhail, was it?

The sun had fully risen by now, and not a cloud remained in the sky. The sun, however, would not melt the snow today. Natalia knew this. Russian winters were harsh, and the roads would remain icy for a while, even after public services had salted the mains ones.

She turned a street corner. The Winder Soldier had never been a part of her mission, or at least, she had never been told he was. Maybe this could be her secret mission, then. An unspoken hobby. Something that would make her stronger for the good of her country.

She would figure out how to break him, make him look just like he had in the hall. After all, she might not be able to beat him in combat, not yet, but she could damn well break whatever will he had left. That must have been why his handlers had brainwashed him. Broken him in. For the very same reason they did her.

Weakness.

The Winter Soldier had a weakness, and as Natalia parked to pick up a coffee for her and Ivan, she decided that she would discover that weakness during his visit. And kill it.

She would be the Summer to his Winter, only to throw him back into the frost.

Madam Gorbachev would be so proud.

Mother Russia would be so proud.

* * *

 _Somewhere in the Chornohora, Ukraine. Eastern Block. Winter. Earlier that week._

For a while, there was only darkness. He did not remember his name, what he looked like, and nor did he care. There were only orders.

Tonight, he was to shoot a target in a convoy, speeding down a mountain trail. Shoot to kill, and kill by any means necessary should anything go wrong.

The Winter Soldier knew at once that nothing would go wrong. These men were traitors, harboring a family of a defector, hoping to bring them safely into East Germany. His mission was to snuff them out before they reached Budapest.

The Americans could not have the defector. If the U.S.S.R. could not have him, then, as the saying goes, no one could. The death of his family would prove he had chosen the wrong side of this cold war.

This is what he overheard some soldiers gossiping about. He did not care, however, who these people were. He did not need to know.

All he needed to know was which truck, combined with the estimated speed of his bullet, combined with the speed of the truck, combined with the wind, and how far away he was perched with his sniper rifle.

It would be quick. A shot to the ignition tank, and it would be over. And, if it wasn't over, well… he would just have to finish them in person.

Time seemed to move quickly when his mind was only filled with the urge to fight and orders to follow.

He could see the convoy coming around the mountainside in the distance. He aimed his rifle and waited, focusing on the information the night vision setting in his goggles gave him.

They came closer. Closer.

He hit his target.

The family was no more, as the third to last truck erupted in flames, flipping on its side.

The rest of the convoy, however, appeared more than ready to fight.

For the Winter Soldier, it all happened in a blur. He threw punches, he met them hand to hand, he unholstered his guns at his side and shot each man approaching him with precision. These men were traitors, and he had orders. And no matter how far they ran, he caught up with them before they could hear his footsteps through the woods of the mountain.

Someone was shouting in the distance. "On ubegayet!" a soldier yelled. _He's getting away!_

The Winter Soldier turned towards the sound. About five men stood in his way, some fighting with some of his own men. Some of his own men falling to the ground.

He punched the traitor to his left and wrapped his metal hand around his neck. The man flailed and tried to kick at his side, but the Winter Soldier threw him into a tree trunk, his body landing in an unnatural angle.

He ran towards the shouts, shooting with both guns, with one hand aimed at a man on his left, and another on his right. The noises punctured the air, and with the sounds of more bodies dropping, he heard shouts of retreat.

Surely they wouldn't think they could get away so easily.

He kicked a gun from a young traitor's trembling fingers, elbowing him with his metal arm in the chin, and shooting him with his other hand.

Another man rushed at him, and The Winter Soldier thew up his arm to deflect the bullets, ramming into the man. He grabbed the gun from him and flipped him over into a lifeless heap on the ground.

Soon, he reached the cause of all the shouting. A tiny pair of legs scrambled out of his vision at the last second, past a large rock formation on the side of the road.

Ahead of him, KGB soldiers were holding a man down. "Pozhaluysta!" the man pleaded with him, arms up in defeat. "Please, he's just a boy, he's just a boy, Nevinnyy, he's an _innocent_!"

The Winter Soldier shot him in the head. He turned to his men. "Ya voz'mu mal'chika." _I'll take the boy_

The mountains were silent now. Trucks from the convoy were burning, smoke rising in the night, flames catching on dead trees and branches. Blood stained the snow. And there was a little boy, shivering in the cold, hiding behind a rock as though the Winter Soldier would never know he existed.

The Winter Soldier approached his hiding place, silent steps merging with the whistling of the wind. He bore down at the boy with his emotionless goggles and mask.

The boy was a freckled thing with sweat-soaked hair, clad only in a loose cotton pajamas. The son of the defector must have heard him but not seen him in the darkness, as his eyes were squeezed shut and he appeared to be muttering something. Suddenly, he opened his eyes—and that was what caused the Winter Soldier to hesitate.

His eyes, red-rimmed and puffy, were a startling blue.

God, he knew that blue, from somewhere off in the distance.

But none of that mattered, not now. He aimed his gun at the boy's unsuspecting head.

The boy clenched his fists. Maybe he heard him. But just as the Winter Soldier was about to pull the trigger, the boy lifted his fists…and the boulder behind him rose from the ground as well.

There had been nothing in his orders about this.

Someone shouted in alarm behind him, and so the Winter Soldier did the one thing he could to stop all this.

The shot rang out and ricocheted into the night. The rock fell with the boy's body. The Winter Soldier remained impassive as his men collected the body and escorted him to their transit.

A mutant?

There had been nothing in his orders about this.

* * *

"Miss Romanova!"

Natalia smiled up to Ivan, kissing him on both cheeks. "Dobroye utro, Ivan." _Good morning._

"It's so good to see you," he said, grinning back. His teeth were bright white. "It's been…ah, it's been hell without you. The rest of the girls do not compare."

"Glad to know you're not quick to be rid of me."

"No, no, no! Natalia, you're saving the company. It's not easy to find replacements at this stage. Why, without you, we…is that coffee?"

"Picked one up on the way. Here. I hope I remembered how you liked it."

"It's wonderful," said Ivan, taking it from her. He turned to the rest of the group, and in a much-too loud voice, said: "Thank you, Natalia. See, this is how you treat your partner, ladies. Wonderful."

The other girls rolled their eyes and turned back to their warm-ups.

"I'd better go change," said Natalia quickly.

Ivan nodded. "Yes, yes, and thank you!"

Natalia smiled and turned, ignoring the glares the other performers were giving her. They didn't matter much to her, least of all Ivan. It took nothing to gain his trust, and once she had it, she could go anywhere in the facility. Besides, after tonight's rehearsal and Friday night's performance, she would finally be able to be done with the place.

Not that she was altogether keen to leave. The Gosudarstvennïy Akademicheskiy Teatr Operï i Baleta, or the GATOB, was nothing short of beautiful. And of all the assignments she did have, ballet was the one she liked the most.

The theatre called to mind older times, just like The Red Room Academy. Ornate blue and gold curtains hung on the stage and in the box seats. Gold moulding covered the perimeter of the ceiling and down the walls. A painting of dancing cherubs overlooked the stage and orchestra pit, while another circular painting of cherubs and men and women draped in cloth danced around a sparkling chandelier.

 _I am one of the twenty-six ballerinas…_ here, the lie seemed so real. Well, it wasn't the Bolshoi this time, but maybe someday, she would be able to go back to Moscow and perform. _Training is hard_ …everything is hard. Becoming a Black Widow is hard, and that is her mission here. Her cover. And a way of convincing senior staff in the KGB that the Black Widow Program is more than enough of an asset to the Soviet state.

Simple enough, she thought as she shut the door to the dressing room behind her, heaving a sigh of relief.

"Ah, was it Ivan?" said a voice from the mirror.

"Da," Natalia replied, plopping her bag on a folding chair. "He's not so bad, but sometimes…"

"He's a…a babnik. That's what he is." A girl a little older than Natalia turned around from her chair at the mirror. _Womanizer._

"Something like that," Natalia agreed. She didn't mention that she'd be more than happy to shove the barrel of her gun up his ass, but then, Anna need not know that. She took off her coat and flung her sweater over her head.

"He drives me crazy!" said Anna, running her fingers over her slicked-back bun. "But he does make a good Prince Siegfried."

"He's a good dancer," Natalia offered, pulling on her tights.

"Who also likes to act like a prince, too," Anna sighed. "Just because he's cute and talented doesn't mean the Soyuz owes him something, you know?" _Union._

"Uh huh."

"Natalia… Be honest with me, Natalia. You know I've always appreciated your honesty. Do you think…do you think I've made a mistake in marrying him?"

Natalia carefully pulled up her leotard and smoothed out the feathers. "I can't say I have an opinion either way. But what I can say is this." She leaned into the mirror, speaking to Anna's reflection. "You make your bed, you sleep in it. You make a decision, you deal with it. It's not what I think. It's what you think. Are you a dancer, Anna, or are you Ivan's wife?"

"Both," she replied.

"And is he a dancer, or is he your husband?"

Anna sighed. "Both."

"Then either make sure he acts like it, or tell him to choose."

"You sound like you speak from experience," she said. "Ah, no, I've said too much. Well like I said, I did always appreciate your honesty…"

"Don't mention it." It was all for her character, anyway. Natalia Romanova, the unassuming replacement ballerina, the kind one, the talented one, the one that will soon reach the ears of Foreign Minister Vadim Makarov, who loves the gossip among dance companies—especially when they involve pretty young ballerinas. Men. So easily taken with a nice face.

"No, no," said Anna, standing up from her chair. She put a hand on Natalia's shoulder. "You're right. Thank you, Natalia. Tell you what. Maybe while I speak with him I can convince him to have you perform at the Bolshoi, yes? I remember you always loved that place. Ivan can pull more than a few strings."

"I'd like that," Natalia said on autopilot, taking Anna's seat at the mirror and plopping a smaller bag from her duffle on the dressing table. Foundation. White powder. Silver shadow base; small wings. Red lips.

The white swan. The fairytale princess, trapped and doomed to remain a bird.

"Beautiful," Anna remarked, pinning a small crown with white and silver feathers in her red hair. "Kak vsegda."

 _As always_.

* * *

Rehearsal was brutal, almost as brutal as training. Natalia let herself become the music, become the steps and sequences she'd memorized by heart. She let herself become both Odette and Odile, Natalia the prima ballerina, and Natalia the Prem'yer of the Red Room.

She could feel new blisters forming.

In the third act, however, after she had changed outfits and darkened her makeup, she almost did not notice a dark figure leaning against the back of the theatre near the doors. She might have missed him entirely if he had not tapped his gloved hands on the edge of the mop at his side, a sliver of metal catching the stage lights for only a moment.

Natalia kept dancing, but her expression stiffened. What was _he_ doing here?

If he had come to watch her dance, then she would not disappoint him. She took Ivan's hand, and he spun her around on her toes. She was Odile, now, not the Odette Prince Seigfried was so in love with.

As Ivan took to his part where he leaped with glee for having been reunited with Odette, Natalia snuck a peek at the figure.

She could not tell if he was looking back, but he had not moved.

Soon, it was her time to join in. The 32 fouetté turns. She could do this, she knew she could. She brushed her right leg forward, opened to second position, and closed to a turned out passé. Relevé. Begin.

1, 2, 3, 4…

She was spinning, but she kept her eyes trained on the figure in the back. She almost grinned.

It would be in these few moments that KGB men who would come to her performance on Friday would understand what it was like to be a Black Widow. To be lethal and deadly, strong and determined, all whilst disguised in grace and beauty. The perfect spy.

29, 30, 31, 32…

Soon it was over, and perhaps she heard that gloved metal hand patting the stick of the mop in quick succession, as though in applause.

But maybe she had imagined it.

* * *

It was dark when rehearsal finally ended. Most of the dancers had left, with some younger boys and girls suggesting they all go out for drinks downtown, and others too exhausted to do anything else but go home and sleep. Friday would be coming soon.

Natalia checked the back of the theatre once they had finished, but found no sign of the Winter Soldier or his peculiar mop. Before she could look further, Olga, one of the other swans, had pulled her back, asking her opinion on this and that, and since Natalia had danced her part back at the Bolshoi, if she thought Olga's posture had been right or if she should have loosened up more in the Dance of the Little Swans. Anna snuck Natalia a wave as she and Ivan, hand-in-hand, left for the day, too.

Almost everyone was gone by the time they had finished talking. Olga thanked her, picked up her bag, and left, the doors to the lobby slamming shut behind her.

Then it was silent. Natalia sighed, walking back to the center stage, where a few sparse lights had been left on, so the cleaning crew could make preparations for the final production.

Already, a man in a brown turtleneck and dark pants was beginning to mop, removing any residue from the dancer's shoes.

"And what did you think?" she asked.

The man stopped mid-stroke, and looked up from his mop. "Prekrasnyy," he replied. _Beautiful_.

"Are you talking about the performance, the GATOB, or, Soldat, or are you talking about me?"

He seemed to consider this. Then, he replied with a small smile, "All of the above?"

"I'm glad to know the Winter Soldier approves," Natalia said, folding her arms. She gestured to his mop and bucket. "Is this part of the training? No, don't tell me—does it give your other arm a workout?"

"Something," he started, then paused. "Something's come up. And now I'm," he read the name tag on his sweater, "Igor, apparently, for two days a week."

"They're having you do undercover work?"

"Apparently."

Natalia thought back to earlier that morning, when he had barely recognized her, when he had been covered in blood. A change of plans, they had said. "This doesn't have anything to do with Illya or the Rusak Bratva, does it? You disappeared after the assignment."

"Not exactly," he admitted. "I can't tell you why, but I have to be there on opening night."

Her eyes widened. "You're not going to get in the way, da?"

"Depends. Probably not, though."

"So here you are, cleaning the floors, watching my performance, and it has nothing to do at all with my cover. If you're not going to tell me the truth, then the least you can do is explain what the hell happened this morning."

"This morning? What happened this morning?"

"Don't tell me you don't know."

"Know _what_?"

"Bozhe moi. You really don't?" _Oh my God_.

His brow furrowed, jaw tightening. "No. But that…happens sometimes."

"Happens sometimes?"

"Yes."

"And you're okay with that?"

"And you're not?"

"Yes, I'm not, you didn't even recognize me. Slammed the door right in my face. Do they do that, just send you off on missions only to come back bloody with no memory of _how_?"

The Winter Soldier stopped cleaning and leaned against his mop. "Just why do you care so much?"

"I don't _care_. But like hell I'd let someone do that to me!"

"Sure, sure, bet you've never been brainwashed by Gorbachev, or that Professor, what was it? Pchelintsov?"

"That's not brainwashing. Trust me, I know the difference." Natalia folded her arms. "His treatments are revolutionary. They make me stronger."

"Oh, so that's it? If it helps you, it's fine for people to mess around in your head, but if they use you, even if it's for the same cause—"

"I would die for my country. Gladly. And would you? They say you're not even Russian. Maybe that's the reason why they make it so you can't remember. Because you're not loyal enough."

The Winter Soldier's metal hand clenched around the mop handle. "I'm the last person you want to be talking to about loyalty."

"Why?"

"You really don't want to know."

"No," Natalia pressed, "I really do."

"Fine," he said, wetting his lips. "I don't care about your whole 'for the Motherland' shit. You can have your Marxist superstructure, your ideology. It works for you. But I don't work like that. I'm a weapon, Natalia. Do you know what that's like? No. You don't. I have orders, I follow them. I go back into cryo. No questions asked. You think they fix me up sometimes because I'm not loyal?" The Winter Soldier laughed bitterly. "Don't be an idiot, Natalia. It doesn't suit you. I don't need to be _loyal_. I follow orders because that's what I do. That's who I am. And it's people like me that make people like you possible."

"People like me?" said Natalia through clenched teeth.

"People that _need_ to be loyal. I saw you, doing all those twirls and leaping around. You _liked_ it. You're not a goddamn weapon, not a machine. You're human. I'm not."

"And you think that makes me lesser? That I can't do my job without you because I find some fucking enjoyment in my work?"

"I'm saying I didn't recognize you this morning because I wasn't programed to. Now I am."

"So you're saying you're not a man."

"I'm saying that I don't get why you care."

Natalia snatched the mop from his hand and let it clatter to the floor. "Stop. Stop this running in circles. I. Don't. Care."

"Oh," he said, picking up the mop from where it fell, "I think you do. More than you want to. And doesn't that just tear you apart, Spider?"

"Don't presume to know me."

"I know enough."

"But you still don't know why you came back to the Red Room covered in blood, do you?"

The Winter Soldier groaned, running his flesh hand through his hair. "Is anything I'm saying getting through to you?"

Natalia offered him a half-smirk. "I could do this all day."

He stiffened, and for a second, she thought he was going to back away from her, but he didn't move.

Maybe there _was_ something to the Winter Soldier, something more than what met the eye.

"You make a good point," she said at last. "I like ballet. That's correct. You like…well, I don't know what you like. Shooting people? Polishing your metal arm? That's my guess. Or is it women? Men? A face like yours is wasted if never loved. Have you ever been in love, Soldat?"

He stared at her blankly. "Love is for children. Children cannot fight a war, Natalia. It would be best for you to remember that."

"And I've told you before," she said, poking at his chest. "You're still a man in there. Somewhere. Human beings are not machines, and it's foolish to think you're an exception." She paused. "There are lots of rumors about you going around at the Academy. But I think that someday I'll know the 'man behind the mask'. The real one, and not… 'Igor'." She cocked her head to the side, considering. Then, she said: "I wonder if you even remember who you used to be."

"Goodnight, Natalia," he said, turning back to his mop.

Natalia shrugged and picked up her duffle. "Goodnight, Soldat. And if I do see you here on Friday…well. Try not to shoot me while you're at it."

"Focus on your fancy footwork and you'll be fine."

The doors slammed shut behind her.

She would break the Winter Soldier and find the man underneath. He hadn't always been a weapon, she knew that much. It was only a matter of getting him to open up to her, and if experience taught her anything, it was that anyone will talk with the right motivation.

Maybe she would tell him about what happened at the Bolshoi. Maybe she wouldn't.

Still. Perhaps there were better ways to control him if he were a man and not a machine.

* * *

In the morning, after a night of drinking, Igor Popov was surprised to walk onto the main stage of the GATOB only to find an overturned bucket and a broken mop. Those well-dressed men who paid him didn't mention this might happen. Ah, well. At least it hadn't been his favorite…


End file.
